Both times I’ve almost died were by drowning. The first was serene, like falling asleep to a lullaby from the next room. It was like listening to a siren’s song: the slow loss of energy, swimming too far from shore to return. Tired legs, laughter. A runaway riptide. We’d joke about it, my sisters and I, oh, remember when we went out all together? Remember how we wanted to go swimming again later that afternoon? I didn’t wholly comprehend the severity of it until after, when my parents finally explained their point of view– trying to keep their children afloat, one too many kids and one too many miles from shore. If they’d have had one less, they said, they could have each held one of us and swam back. Later, as my mother told the story, she turned to put her hand on my ankle from the front seat of the car. A reflexive check. A making sure.
The excitement of Christmas had just passed, leaving everyone pleasantly empty. Relaxed. As the shore slowly receded, my parents gathered my sisters and I. My mother, who did not look terrified, was not an incredible swimmer. She’s good with endurance, and was fine to hold my sister afloat, but she could not fathom the swim back to shore. My father, a much better swimmer, still couldn’t take the other two of us back at once. The water churned around them. Could you hold one more? he must have asked, intending to swim back with one of us and then return. No, I really can’t. I won’t make it with both of them until you come back. My stomach turns now, remembering it, but at the time it felt just like swimming. Arms around, legs in little circles, bobbing up and down. I guess it was a little further than usual, and why were they whistling for help? Usually we swam fine alone. I could even go in the water up to my knees without them next to me, as long as I had my sisters. As long as they were watching. It felt a little like a test. Maybe they were seeing if we were good enough swimmers to go alone, like at camp, where we would tread water for five minutes. As we climbed out, legs exhausted, we’d be rewarded with popsicles and the sun drying our towels and our hair.
It was more than an hour. Even they don’t remember exactly how long we were out there, an uncrossable channel between us and the sandy ground. I remember smiling on the way back to shore, hands happily wrapped around the foam buoy, being dragged along by a lifeguard. He was younger than my parents, but was asking them questions in authoritative Spanish. He commented on how we looked relaxed, my sisters and I, and I remember thinking that was unusual. Should I have been scared? Of what? I don’t know how they managed, carrying three eight year old bodies, clumsy limbs unused to swimming, not displaying an ounce of visible fear. Hands, feet, leaden legs. More than an hour. Mom, how much longer? Are we there yet? Adrenaline, I suppose. When the other option is sinking with your child, allowing water into your mouth and hers, your legs keep up.
The second time, my father saved me. The second time, I wasn’t really drowning– or, more accurately, I shouldn’t have been. It was shallow enough that I could just barely graze the ground with my toes if I tried, and I knew this. I was at most a step forward away from being able to stand, my head resting comfortably above the water. I don’t remember when or why, but I remember my feet slipping from under me, the sand suddenly unstable. Unsafe. The feeling of water in my nose, my mouth, the panicked thrashing to anywhere that felt more like air than liquid. I think I screamed, or tried to, but I can’t say with any certainty that any air actually left my lungs, or that any sound escaped to the surface. It may have been the noise, the burst of white bubbles and disappearance of my head under the water, the sudden and wild reappearance of random limbs that drew his attention. It occurred to me that I was definitely being dramatic, God, just put your feet down, walk to shore, calm down. It almost occurred to me to pray. A prayer of salvation, what a foreign concept. I remember the terror, the coughing, the way I thought I was going to break open at the ribs. The way I would have clawed out my throat to breathe.
It could have been no more than thirty seconds before I was scooped out of the water and whisked ashore. I wasn’t far from the picnic table where my parents and their friends were sitting, sharing a bottle of wine and catching up. My dad’s wine glass was now shattered, small pieces of glass adorning the rocks of the path to the water. The rocks did more damage to him than the water did to me, and the guilt over his bloody feet puddled around me. Someone wrapped a towel around my shoulders as I sank onto the dock, and someone else asked me what happened. My dad swore from somewhere above me, an almost divine presence hobbling over me to prop his feet up on the table. I could barely stand to look at the lake. Its surface remained placid, interrupted only by the splashing of my sisters who had risen, like mermaids, from the glistening water. Their eyes mirrored my parents’, who were looking equally concerned and expectant. I couldn’t explain why I deserved to be saved, why in water I could have stood in, I made my father bleed. I was wholly crying by then, wracking sobs into a pink and purple towel. I could still feel the water pressing the back of my throat, the sand unsteady under my feet. My hair dripped, leaving small beads of water on the dock.
I miss you more than I remember you—집에 간다
It was a summer of the hottest days I’d ever known, of great rains and thunder, of long nights and a great quiet that stretched through me. It was the summer I finally went home. Korea is my motherland, but she was a mother that did not want this child. I spent the summer grieving and found no solace for it. I was twenty years old; filled with a longing that could not, and would not be answered.
I stand on the same university steps my grandmother had once stood, wondering if she is proud of me. The air is thick and warm, and I can barely breathe against it. The pear trees are shaking, the wind blowing through them fast and frenzied. The heat makes me rotten inside, and I wonder if she can see it from wherever she is. I am her daughter’s daughter, but I am strange and half formed, broken somewhere deep. I speak her language now, but it’s no use now that she’s gone. The storm clouds are gathering, and I feel them like a physical weight against my body. I wonder if the people that pass by can see the open wound I carry. Whatever I was looking for, it’s not here.
Long days studying stretch into longer nights. I spend them on the streets, in the clubs, at the bars. Time did not pass linearly in Korea—I look back and all I can remember are vignettes—disparate moments that create the narrative of my life for that time. My friends and I roam wild and free—a whole host of college-aged American born Korean kids, here for the summer, here to reclaim what was lost. We eat tender pork belly, wash it down with raw garlic, fresh kimchi, and mild beer. We cheer, play games, and dance our hearts out until it is morning again. All the people do here is work, study, and drink. We follow suit. I grow more and more tired each day, but there is always something more to do, something that we have to make time for before we leave. I am sick with my desire to go home, but I am home. The best part of my night is the walk back, where I lose myself to my music and the dark blue sky, where the stray cats follow me home and I am finally alone.
Jabez and I sit on the curb, awash in our hazed drunken states. Jabez was born in Portland too. We grew up under a canopy of clouds, watered daily by the rain, kept safe under the towering trees of the Pacific Northwest. Jabez is also Korean, just like I am, but he is the son of two Korean citizens, and cannot be here for more than three months or they will conscript him. Jabez is gay too, just like I am, and we recognize the same heartbreak in each other’s eyes. But for now, we are here, it is summer, and we are so painfully young. The nights we spend in Itaewon on “Homo Hill,” imprint themselves on my mind—the drag queens painted with glitter, the girls with their brightly colored hair, and the way we can feel the music’s vibrations resound in our hearts.
It is raining but it always rains here. The temple glows by candlelight and a golden Buddha smiles down on us. It’s grandiose, all red pillars and gilded edges. We stand next to each other, strange and new, my twin sister on one side, my best friend from home on the other. A monk walks by us and the length of our shorts feels sacrilegious. Lightning flashes but it does not deter those who have come to seek comfort amongst the deep red-blue-greens of the temple walls and the lanterns that flicker above. On the steps above us, they bow. The more bows, the more devout their wish. In each of our hands is a colorful votive carved with the animal zodiac from the year we were born. They beg us to write our wishes on them, but we are too shy to respond to their calls. I hold the ram’s head in my hand, knowing exactly what is written on my heart. I hide it anyway and write down something paltry, a deformed wish about getting good grades. Still, I turn it away so they can’t see.
My mother stares down at the steps that descend and then reach up to the sky. It’s been years since she’s returned to Korea and I know that it feels stranger and stranger each time she comes back. I know because I feel it too. The glass on either side of us reflects the blue of the sky and the building melts into the ground as it rises up beside us. It looks different, she says, than how I remember it. Then how it was when her mother was here. Do you think she would be proud? Despite what I am? I bite my tongue and the questions hang in the air like a loaded gun—one that I hold behind my mother’s back, out of sight.
My sister and I grasp each other’s hands—the dancers have assembled, and the familiar notes of arirang cascade towards us. My beloved one. The tears flash hot and heavy, summoned by the song, living on memories that we thought had long faded. I meet her eyes and the devastation I feel is mirrored in them. Our grandmother, 할머니, was beautiful here, and at her most brilliant. This was her holy ground, her site of prayer. The beat of the drum, the quick movement of the fans, the dancers’ bodies flowing together—the choreography that was her life’s work. I still remember that critical eye, piercing and pointed, landing on everyone around her. Her red ballet shoes, her perfectly manicured nails, and her love of coffee with milk. Years have passed, and I hold onto these memories still, I carry them with me everywhere I go. I craved Korea for so long, but I am beginning to realize that I am craving the one from years ago—the one that still belonged to her.
I sit at the temple once again, alone this time. A Buddha statue towers twenty feet tall above me. There is no god, but I need forgiveness. I need to know. I bow and I bow and I bow, but there is no answer to my prostrations. The Buddha does not bow back. Behind me is all of Seoul, sprawled across the Han River. At the peak, the blue of the sky swallows me up, and the longing that has been killing me finally shifts into something greater, something bright and new. I call to the quiet, and it doesn’t answer back. I leave something behind in that moment, but I am glad to see it go.
The joy is sharp here and it cuts into me. Smiling faces everywhere, that look like my own. A foreign feeling made familiar. Rainbow flags waving, glittering paint on faces, hands that reach for me. The heat is still unbearable, but for now my happiness will shield me from it. In the periphery, I see protesters shouting about sinners, hell, and all that is damned. They fade away into obscurity next to the brazen colors of Pride, unable to compete with the wave of thousands descending upon Seoul Plaza. We will never be what we once were. I know this now. The grief remains, but the joy is born anew and I feel them both in every breath. The music is deafening, the crowd’s chorus all consuming. The sound fills my heart until it overflows. I grasp my sister’s hand. We allow the wave to swallow us, and we don’t come up for air.
Chico (Ang/El)
The Manilkara zapota fruit, commonly known as sapodilla, sapote, chicozapote, etcetera, is a brown, grainy, fleshy little thing. You can eat it peel on, but I prefer to eat it sans skin, eliminating the experience of tongue on fuzz to focus instead on the smoothness of sinking my teeth in, sweet juice spilling to coat my throat. In the Philippines, we call it chico.
On Sunday mornings we would make the trip to Carbon. Carbon, in my memory, is a dangerous place. One of the oldest markets in the Philippines, its potholed streets are lined by baskets filled with overflowing produce, nipa storefronts selling toy ukuleles for kids, low grey rooms displaying aquariums overstocked with fish. And in some of the baskets, sometimes, there are chicos. Rare finds.
Carbon is where you go when you need good food, cheap, and so every Sunday morning we would make the trip. The taxi would stop on the market’s fringe, and then my parents, holding one of us each tightly by the hand, would haggle and bargain and sniff and weigh, working their way into the center. Mostly, I would zone out, looking instead all around me to wonder at the colors and the noise and the smells, returning to myself only when someone came too close, clutching my little pink handbag tightly to my chest. Seven-year-olds, obviously, are the primary targets of snatchers.
All this would change as soon as we made it to the fruit section. What do you want? my father would ask, and suddenly we were checked in. “Rambutan! Sineguelas! Mangoes, please!” We would sniff and weigh and pick with them, then step back as they spoke with the vendors, eyes shifty, eager. Were there chicos in Carbon today? We would circle like eagles, missing nothing. When we found it, we would not celebrate, not yet. Immature chico tastes chalky, is dry and firm. Sniffing and weighing and picking was, in this case, a sacred scientific process, all the scientific training from first grade brought to bear for these critical moments. My father taught me to feel for firmness near the stem, to see which ones were brown and which ones were brown brown. When all else failed, to ask the vendor, smiling sweetly, if we could buy just one at first, just to taste.
In December of that year, the last Sunday before Christmas, somehow there were chicos, and somehow the chicos were ripe. I came home with the plastic bag double-knotted and hugged tightly to my chest, bruising the fruit, I’m sure, in the process. At home we set them aside and busied ourselves with putting up the decorations, mixing marinades for Christmas eve dinner, preparing for the agape Christmas day lunch. My father lifted all my thirty kilos so I could put the angel on the tree, a yearly tradition. “Save the chico for Christmas,” mom tells us, but when she’s asleep my father comes to our room, pulls a chico from his pocket, peels. We split the chico in three, laughing in whispers, orange in the glow of our nightlight, taking turns until the final bite, and then wiping our hands on our pajamas and climbing back into bed, mouths still sticky with juice. “Merry Christmas,” we whisper, to our dad then to each other, then switch off the light.
The Manilkara zapota tree is endemic to Central America and the Caribbean. The first Spaniards crossing the Atlantic found Manilkara zapota at the heart of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. Their great cities were built of stone and sapodilla wood, their temples held together by sapodilla resin. They offered sapodilla seeds to their gods, grinded sapodilla leaves to blend into incense, cooked its sap to make tzictli, from the Náhuatl verb tzicoa, to stick. Chewing the tzictli in public was taboo in Aztec civilization—an activity only for children, prostitutes, and old maids—, a culture that, like many others, was quickly made obsolete by Spanish men. I imagine the sailors of the Acapulco galleon trade, crossing the Pacific on naos de China—so-called Chinese ships crafted and steered by indentured Filipino men—, saved from scurvy, for now, by the stores of zapote in the holds below. They chew idly, white foam leaking out the sides of their mouths, then spit, chapped lips pulling back over stained yellow teeth, a lonely pellet soaring over the side of the ship, arcing in the wind, slipping gracefully into sea.
Over four hundred years since the trade’s end, I take the route of the galleon, transposed into sky. When I arrive in Peru, now twenty-two, I am in a constant state of happy surprise. Sugar apples, singkamas, adobo, lechon – these things crossed the ocean too. Which things originally came from the Philippines, which from Latin America, and which from, god forbid, Spain, I don’t know, but I don’t really care. What matters is that I get to be a cheerful regular at Mercado Wanchaq, eagerly trading my five soles for giant smoothies reminiscent of those made by my grandmother, or paying seven for familiar two-course meals and a drink. On my way out, I stop by the produce section, where I haggle and bargain and sniff and weigh, familiar with fruit my European roommates find exotic. I climb to my apartment with heavy plastic bags double knotted and leaving tender red indents on my fingers, the thin air of Cusco doing more damage than the six flights of stairs. Call my boyfriend, my grandmother, my sister, like a kindergartener eager for her turn at show-and-tell. “Look at this chisa! It’s the size of my head!” My mother, just now awake, smiles blearily from the other side of the world, pours oil on a pan, loves me as she starts beating her eggs.
One afternoon as we are cutting through the mercado, my friend Vanessa stops me, excited. “Tienes que probar esto!” She is holding out a strange fruit, long and oval, its skin a smooth dark orange. “Que es?” “Un nispero.” She turns to the lady, asks, with the same sweet smile I learned in Carbon: “Podemos probar uno?” You have to wash fruit in Peru before you eat them, a lesson I learned the hard way weeks ago, but when the vendedora nods, Vanessa peels the fruit, and I bite.
Nispero. Sourer than I was used to and with a strange peachy note, there was no mistaking the sugary, malty taste, the dark hooked seeds. “We have this too!” I tell Vanessa. “We call it chico.” “Chico? No, no, no, it’s too good to be called chico.” Vanessa is in a situationship with an older German unable to commit, and I have spent the last two months convincing her to end things. I tell her to leave my fruit out of her love life. Later that night, when the chico viejo calls, she picks up on the second ring and throws her jacket on a few minutes later, saying she loves me, she’ll tell me all about it in the morning, don’t look at her with that face. I walk her to the gate and laugh at her, because what else is there to do, and then get ready to meet my roommates out for dinner. When she finally ends it with him it will be another two months later, and she will be calling me to come with tissues and wine, but for now she texts me the heart eye emoji and I text her back a knife. Later that night, when everyone but me has fallen asleep, I call my father. “There’s chico here,” he should know. I hold it up to the camera, watch him move his phone two inches from his face. “They call it nispero.”
My father, in that Christmas of the chico, had gone the extra mile. Santa Claus didn’t just come to town—he visited every single one of our favorite stores, left clues and small gifts with part-time elves. We collected: happy meals from McDonald’s, books from Fully Booked, candy from my grandmother’s house. The treasure hunt led us around the city and finally back to our house, where a veritable trove awaited us. We tore through presents then tore through dinner, Josh Groban’s slow crooning doing little to slow us down, I’ll be home for Christmas nothing but background noise to the feast of pancit and lechon and lumpia and cake. I remember that after dinner we were full, that we were sleepy, that we fell asleep on the sofa and forgot about the chico, that were carried to bed in my parents’ skinny, warm arms, that they grunted when they lifted us, smoothed our hair after they tucked us in. Kissed us, softly, goodnight.
That night I woke up in the dark. It was cold, so at first, I burrowed deeper into the sheets, searched for my sister’s warmth. Finding nothing, I rose, annoyed, blanket still wrapped around me, sure she had abandoned me for my parents’ bed. Feet bare and blinking away sleep, I plodded into the hall, only to walk into her, stood there, frozen. This was how it felt: like I was in a field of crushed flowers, standing under white-lit empty sky, encircled by a gray sea full of once-living things. Out of nowhere: apocalypse. This was the reality: a small living room of crushed things. A moment of time when all was suspended. Only my father moved and moved things, a whirlwind. A dining table leg snapped against kitchen wall. A picture frame shattered. A Christmas angel beheaded on the floor. My mother frantic, and angry, and pleading. And when he saw me, when I started to shout, a heavy, special bowl, sent spinning. The last clear image, in the blur of the days that followed: the chico, a fragrant, brown brown, splattered mess on the ground.
In the years to come I will think about the chico. Impossible to find in the rainy, storm-frequented town up north where my mother moved us, I will be unable to let that final image go. Not six months later, when I regain my voice, start to learn the new language. Not six years past, when my parents somehow reconcile. Not until another two years have gone by, and I return home to Cebu for the first time, for Christmas. Past midnight on Christmas eve when festivities are over, when I have smiled through my share of “You’ve gotten so tall”s and “You have your father’s nose”s, when the house is finally emptied of guests, I lie in our childhood bed, sleepless. Careful not to wake my sister, I rise and wander the strange, shrunken house, wonder at the bright new paint, the unfamiliar smells. I find my father in the kitchen, a chico in his hands, peeling. He stands, hunched, in total darkness. The clock ticks. He says nothing, keeps his eyes on the fruit. So do I. When he hands me a piece, I bite.
Google informs me that since the galleon trade, the chico has made its way from Manila to Thailand and from there to China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Vietnam. Separately, direct from Latin America, it has traveled north to Hawaii and South Florida, has made its way down to New Zealand and Australia, has crossed the Atlantic to South Africa. It is, today, a garden fruit as well as a crop, and there are so many names and cultivars I lose count. This simple fruit. Its infinite forms.
As I travel, I encounter the chico again and again. Brownish green and called the Hồng Xiêm in Hanoi, made into jams and smoothies and pie. As expensive naseberry concentrate in artisanal stores in Tampa Bay. In candy at the largest Asian supermarket in Geneva. Never the easiest to peel by hand, I eat the fruit skin-on nowadays, impatient for the taste, unwilling to sit through a process I compare to peeling grapes. Each time, I think back to all the hands I’ve watched gently forming rifts on skin, pinching fuzzy edge and smoothing it down, careful not to waste any flesh. Holding the fruit out for me to taste. I remember fruit peeled for and fruit given, fruit shared and fruit forgotten and fruit smashed. I bring what I can home with me, when I can.
When I come home, I leave the candy on the counter, store the jam in the fridge. “Guess what I found,” I ask my father, tossing him a piece, nudging him to move over on the couch, let me sit.
Notes on Growing Up
Cooking blows. Or so I used to say, approximately one year ago before I moved into a Boston apartment with three male Northeastern University sophomores. I had similarly bombastic sentiments about grocery shopping and meal prep— namely, how useless, aggravating, and time consuming it was. I would much rather spend my time doing something else (which was code for “my PS4 is waiting in the other room, and I don’t want to stand here and make sure this pasta water doesn’t boil over”). Now that I had freedom over my eating habits and the ability to leave my apartment to go grocery shopping whenever I wanted to, I thought cooking may be slightly less painstaking; freedom of choice, baby. Contrary to the ingredient household my parents built, I would be able to create my own utopia of frozen vegetables and canned soup. This lasted for approximately 10 days. Ten days before I knew the bliss of Wollaston’s sandwich counter, the ease of picking up shawarma on the way back from the T, and how amazing it was that I could get curly fries from Cappy’s until 3AM, every single day.
I blew through a lot of money in not a lot of time. I needed a job, and I needed to chill on those curly fries, as good as they were. I found a groove in couponing at CVS, learned how to moderate my produce purchases to avoid smells in the fridge, and decided that olive oil made everything taste better than butter ever did. I was learning how to cook, how to plan and prepare, how much garlic I preferred (a lot), among other important life skills; the only problem that remained was how much I still hated being in the kitchen. I didn’t like how my shirt smelled after frying up falafel on the stove, and I could never seem to escape the oily feeling after handling pots and pans in the kitchen (though, looking back, it was probably because of my roommates’ poor cleaning habits). The aspects I enjoyed were sniffing my hands after mincing garlic and, of course, eating. I would make sure my efforts were low and my speed was fast in the kitchen, cleaning as I cooked and escaping to the common room to eat rather than sit at the kitchen table.
I wasn’t entirely alone in my struggle. My roommates were grappling with their own bad habits in the kitchen, but they didn’t seem to be bothered by simply existing in there as much as I was.
I was airing these complaints to a friend of mine one night. Amanda, a Rhode Island School of Design student, had become one of my closest friends during my year off. We were introduced to each other by a mutual friend who grew up with Amanda and met me at Smith— as we became closer, she would take the commuter rail to Boston almost every weekend, romp around with me and a few other people, and buy hair bleach or skincare or snacks before crashing on our couch and leaving the next day after waking up at noon. We bonded over gaming and hating, volleyball and artwork, and often wishing we were anywhere else when the weather started to get cold. That particular day, after complaining about how disinterested I was in cooking the same rice and the same broccoli and the same marinated chicken thigh, Amanda offered to throw together something for us to eat. She had spotted a brand of Japanese golden curry powder cubes she liked earlier that day, and decided now was the perfect time to crack open the package. I acted as her sous-chef that night, and after an hour and a half of chopping, boiling, stirring, and waiting, we had a feast upon us. It was amazing, and I wasn’t pissed by the time I was eating. I attributed that to her presence, being able to talk and banter with someone I enjoyed being around rather than stuck between my headphones, trying to skip a Youtube ad with raw chicken grime on every single finger except for my left pinky. The mood between us was new and almost glorious. I wouldn’t know it yet, but that 3.2oz Semi-Hot S&B Golden Curry Sauce mix would be the start of something beautiful.
Amanda and I cooking together became a semi-regular occurrence; that curry was on repeat the most, but eventually we tried chinese cucumber salad, chao nian gao, tea eggs, and various other dishes. She left written recipes on the fridge for me to follow along with when she was gone, and I began to memorize the steps and ingredients. Chao nian gao was one of my favorites, and I made sure to consistently have rice cakes in the fridge to whip out whenever I felt like I had enough energy to use the wok. I was beginning to feel significantly less angry in the kitchen, though it was never perfect. Small errors would frustrate me, and sometimes the sight of raw chicken would put me in a dour mood. Nevertheless, the kitchen was on the come up. I had developed an insight towards what I liked and what I hated, and it became easier to decide on what to cook and when to cook it. I hadn’t mastered meal prep, and the closest I ever got to that was making 8 tea eggs at once for the week; that didn’t matter to me though, and after a few months of Amanda I had realized cooking wasn’t the bane of my existence anymore.
Time passed; by the time spring rolled around, I was working in a restaurant in Cambridge. A mid-priced pizza joint, and I wasn’t cooking for myself too much anymore. Why would I, when 75% off and infinite free pastries meant it became more economical to eat at work compared to buying food in the middle of Boston? The closest grocery, Wholefoods, was selling boneless skinless thighs for 8 dollars a pound. I hate Wholefoods. Regardless, I wasn’t in the kitchen much. In a way, it was a dream not having to clean dishes and silverware after making a meal, but I found myself missing Amanda’s (and in a way my own) cooking. The summer flew by, and before I knew it, I was packing up my room and moving across the state to Northampton, Massachusetts.
I’m back at Smith and on a meal plan. Focusing on academics rather than making meals is obviously ideal in a college setting, but my attitude is completely flipped. I miss making those foods that Amanda taught me, having access to countless spices and sauces and cooking wines that I left behind in that apartment. I later found out that some of the dishes Amanda made for me were meals from her grandmother in China; for her, cooking is a cross-generational activity that is incredibly meaningful. I realize now that she was not only making me hate the kitchen less, but it was her way of showing how much she cared about me. We bonded during that time, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been granted the opportunity to learn from her. Though she’s an art student, she dreams of opening a restaurant one day, to share cuisine with others to help them appreciate what she loves so dearly. Amanda sends me links to recipes every once in a while, and I save them all. I often wonder how deep her connection with some of those foods really goes. I don’t know much about her family, but I do know she hasn’t been back to Fuzhou in a long time. She talks about taking a trip back often and makes “jokes” about going together on a graduation tour. In the back of my head, I’ve been toying with the idea too. If we go, I think that would signify a huge step in our friendship— a leap that I know would move me deeply. Regarding cooking, I won’t be able to prepare my own food for a good chunk of time, and part of me fears that I’ll lose a bit of that bond we share. It seems rather silly, because I know our friendship will last. I just can’t help it. For now, I want to stay close with her, and when the time comes I know that without a doubt we’ll fall back into our culinary routine.
Reckless Beauty in the Mundane
…
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s 1pm on your average Wednesday. The air is crisp, the sky is blue, not a cloud in sight. Instead of lounging outdoors and basking in the warm rays of late-summer sun, your mom is hunkered away in the library, caught in a cycle of retyping the same sentence over and over again. Stress levels are through the roof and there’s a mountain of deadlines to make. It’s just a regular day in September here at Smith College.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s pouring rain and pitch-black outside, but the car keeps zipping down the freeway. She’s without a care in the world, living on a high that only a concert can bring in all its hot, sweaty, and ear-splitting glory. Nonstop ringing, earplugs abandoned on the kitchen counter, amps as tall as two grown men. Rookie mistake. Did you know your mom was on the cusp of morphing into a rocker chick? She’s twenty with a newly discovered thirst for blaring music and crowded venues.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s early April of sophomore year, and your mom just got back from a first date. She’s sitting in her dorm excitedly recounting details to a friend. Everything from his major, hair color, religion, to the way he fidgets when nervous or how he holds devilishly long eye contact, as if casually peering into the very recesses of her soul. Her family would approve of this one, she thought, while mentally running through a list and ticking off each box. Her stomach’s full of butterflies, but it’s a feeling she relishes. In a moment of weakness, perhaps blinded by the fervidness of her crush, what came blurting out was “I think I met my husband today” before squealing like a schoolgirl diagnosed with a case of chronic twiddling legs. Across the room, her ever-realistic friend’s eyes practically roll into back of her head.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s rush hour and everyone is stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Tall and enticing, the sign for In-n-Out seems to materialize out of thin air. Her stomach growls angrily, but the never-ending line of SUVs appear to be moving at snail’s pace, if at all. The pace is stifling. Your mom is sixteen and dangerously armed with a fresh license, questionable decision-making skills, and a hankering need for speed. It’s intoxicating, the ability to barrel down the freeway and leave every problem miles behind. Ridiculous in all the right ways.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s the end of a long day at school and your mom is fighting with her younger brother. Fighting, as in fist-fighting. Being thirteen, she is bigger and stronger, but he has the moral discipline of a seven-year-old and no qualms about attacking full force. Though their skin displays a patchwork of rapidly purpling bruises, they feel closer than ever. It is cathartic, in a way, to let your inhibitions go and become a flurry of flying fists and kicking legs. The fight slows. Your mom has her brother in a vicious headlock. Without realizing, they look at each other and begin laughing. How embarrassing, how predictable. Their eyes are glassy, pooling with tears as bruised limbs begin to ache, but through it all they smile, giggle, cackle, and perhaps even grin like a Cheshire cat.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. Maybe it’s something you’re already familiar with, but your mom has the stubbornness of a mule. One of her closest friends proudly states that together they are an unstoppable force and immovable object, exactly as written in physics for thousands of years. Your mom? She is the immovable object. For every piece of her you know, there are hundreds more that remain hidden away, left untouched in the form of memories. Here are just a few more: she has never received a speeding ticket, she once broke five piano strings in a single month, she has snatched a goose egg from the local duck pond before, she dreams of becoming an immunologist, and she’s known since age five that she’s always wanted to be a mother. Whether predestined or foreordained, you are inevitable in the future she’s envisioned.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s now 9pm on the same, average Wednesday. The chilly atmosphere has a bite to it, the sky is dark. There is not a cloud in sight. Like a blanket woven from light, a smattering of faintly twinkling stars illuminate the inky night. It’s a recklessly beautiful world painted in shades of dusky twilight. Yet even when presented with such transcendence, she remains hidden away, only this time in the comfort of her own room. Your mother sits cross-legged in a chair, stuck in a loop battling every sentence and word she types. The letters on the page take over, engulfing her in its entirety. This how each of you is born.
The Incomplete Tale
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
It seemed as though Mrs. Clock was mocking me. Tiny LEGO pieces lay scattered across the floor: all different colors and sizes. Some the iconic two studs, some with smooth surfaces. I sat for hours at the center of it all, pondering over my next step.
Every little thing was causing me an inconvenience, or was it just plain irritation? I was missing a piece. Why were these pieces so tiny? It seemed counterintuitive to have pieces integral to holding massive creations together be tiny enough that one might spend two hours looking for them – only to find them snugly lodged in the supple bed provided by one’s calf.
“Nothing has changed in the years since we got you your first set”, said my mother as she walked into the room, while I continued to whine and search frantically for the missing piece.
Slightly larger LEGO pieces lay all across the floor, around a much younger and expressive six-year-old version of myself. Thick pigtails swung in the air, and she looked up at her mother with tears in her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore! Mrs. Clock continues to move forward and remind me how I was going to be finished 2 hours ago! How am I ever supposed to finish this garden without the flower piece? This house can never be completed now…”
My mother’s attempts to make conversation with me, along with the constant chiming of the clock annoyed me further. Each passing hour brought me closer to the deadline I had set to complete my project. As she left the room, my mother reminded me it was time to eat dinner. Apparently, I “need to eat to think better”. Was I not swamped with enough work? There was some delicious pizza that lay waiting to be devoured by yours truly. Oh! How soothing would a warm, cheesy slice of crust and grease feel in a sticky situation like this?
This situation called for standing (ugh) and shaking off the pile of blocks that had formed a little rocky hill on my lap. Getting up, I cracked every stiff joint in my body from hours of sitting on the hard concrete floor, with my posture resembling that of a chicken.
Ms. Missing Piece stayed true to her moniker.
“I definitely haven’t added it in the wrong spot, have I?”
WHAM!
My elbow hit the build. It came crashing down on the hard concrete floor that had, till a few moments ago, been my haven.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
The clock struck again. This was it! I felt fatigued, exhausted and, well, every other synonym that existed for tired. This project wasn’t worth my time. Off to the cheesy bliss of Dominos, we go! I had never left a set uncomplete, though. Or had I?
She couldn’t stop thinking about the incomplete house. It was just a missing flower piece, she thought. That didn’t mean that those tiny figurines in the house had to live in an unfinished house with no roof. It was 9 P.M., past her bedtime, but it was good that she was on vacation. She sat back on the floor and finished that house, sans the flower piece in the garden that was behind the house. Some might think that the set was uncomplete, but for her, it was incomplete, but it was fine, just the way it was.
I never could find that missing flower piece, but I moved on because the house was simply better left incomplete. However, I couldn’t leave this unfinished. I was so close to the end. Even the thought of ooey-gooey pizza couldn’t lure me away from the disaster site. I stayed.
Suddenly, it felt like Mrs. Clock seemed to have better things to do than to mock me on my progress (or lack of). Turning to her, I gasped. It was 2 A.M.- 3 hours since the dilemma of the missing piece had begun, and 9 hours since my project commenced. I become absorbed in new innovations or existing builds needing revamping. 6-year-old me did it, and 20-year-old me still does it. That hasn’t changed. Pieces still get lost, and builds most certainly do collapse, destroying every inch of self-worth I have. Yet, this whole experience is worth it. Large pieces and the annoying tiny feet-attackers, both are integral to the building process.
This model, also known as, GK_MODEL_1, could be the Beta test. What worked and what didn’t for GK_MODEL_1? After figuring out the glitches, I could now build a more efficient structure. I just needed an elegant alternative to the missing annoyance that started this chain of destruction. This would be the improved master build: one to trump them all!
Oh, wait! I think I might’ve solved the problem of the missing piece!
Rummaging through a variety of loose pieces of different shapes and sizes, in a larger purple LEGO-shaped box, also known as my box of spares, I finally found what I had been looking for. The slipper that would fit my Cinderella: a tiny brown grill piece. Each brick clicking together brought my vision to life. Finishing off with the iconic antenna, there stood my LEGO Empire State Building, tall and proud at 22 inches.
Mrs. Clock chimes one last time; it was 4 A.M. But it doesn’t annoy me anymore. A yawn overtakes me, and sleep is the only thing on my mind as I head toward the now-cold pizza that still beckons me.
The long stretch
Fast, chatter, snacking.
Momma and I can talk for hours. Good thing this drive has 8 of them. We talk endlessly switching topics so quickly you never know when one stops and another begins. Some have said being in a car that long with someone can be draining. I find it depends on the person you are with. Learning to drive requires someone you feel safe with, luckily having mastered all the Park City roads, I needed a change. 40 hours of practice driving before getting my license and this will be 16 of them. Momma and Dad made a deal with my brothers and me that each of us would complete a long trip as some of our 40 hours. My brothers went to places like San Diego, California, and Napa Valley, California. Both of those drives were over 10 hours in one direction, so mine was shorter, but that’s fine with me. I wasn’t prepared for the drive to be 8 hours at 85mph on flat barren land that looks like it needs 20 years of good rain. The car is slowly feeling stale with hot breath and the uncomfortable positions both from driving and sitting passenger.
Dry, deserted, flat.
Some would say it’s boring. Driving along desert and wide plains, often no mountains or animals, other than the billions of cows, to look at. While I don’t disagree with that declaration, the drive from Park City, Utah to Pray, Montana can be so interesting (but not this time). In later trips I would see stars shining so brightly, thunderstorms rolling across the valley, and herds upon herds of animals. Seeing a new area will always be interesting to me, especially driving through so many states in one drive. I try to take in all the information about driving, how tired your legs get from driving, and how much the sun glares through the windshield. Having been to Montana before, I try to take notes of things that are “important” or things I have no recollection of seeing before. Driving through college towns, towns that seem smaller than my neighborhood, and seeing all kinds of different or new developments and the different stores surrounding them. All the while Momma and I talk and she teaches me all about where we’ve stopped or why that mountainside looks like it slid into a river. She tells me that a couple of years ago the mountain slid from an earthquake and formed a lake from the landslide. She knows so much and I ask her all my silly questions.
National Parks, Animals, Rivers.
Yellowstone has so much to offer that you can spend so much time in the park. I love Yellowstone, it may be my favorite National Park that I’ve been to. I love the scenery and the history, but I especially love the animals. Yellowstone adds about 2-3 hours depending on routes to take. I focus more on the people being stupid out of their cars and way too close, bison are big, so you should be able to see them perfectly fine from the mostly safe space of your vehicle. You get close enough to these enormous animals without needing to pet one. That’s just an injury waiting to happen. My family has always been one to watch the elk, antelope, and bears for hours. Nowadays, post the Yellowstone River flooding of 2023, we spend hours watching the den of my favorite wolf pack. We always make it a game to see who can spot the most kinds of animals and actually explain where the animal is.
On this trip, there was a bear right on the side of the road hidden at the base of a tree. As Momma was driving while I took a break, I looked down in a slight gully at the base of a tree-full hill. I made Momma flip around to see if it was really a bear or just a branch. It was indeed a little black bear, super precious, which made my momma and I laugh for a good couple of minutes. I ended up causing what many in Yellowstone call a “bear jam,” where traffic piles up to see a bear. I was so proud of myself.
Cramp, Tired, Messy.
After exiting West Yellowstone, we drive through the little towns above the Yellowstone River. Momma switches back into the driver’s seat as she knows this place better than I do. I’m still getting used to driving narrow roads and this one can be especially scary above a very large ravine the Yellowstone River created. Finally, we drive past our ranch and into a town called Livingston. Cramped and numbed by the drive, we fall out of the car into the hotel. We begin noticing things as we go into the room that disgusts us, but we disregard them until we leave. The hotel is musty and I can feel the eyes of old men on me as I walk around, especially around the pool. We settle down for the night and Momma tells me all the plans for the upcoming days, with visiting the ranch she and Dad had visited a couple of weeks ago being one of them.
Fast, dry, rocks.
We turn off the highway onto this dry lot and I look at Momma like she’s crazy. She explains the gate system, where one stops (only a couple acres of land) and the next is our property. We drive down, getting jostled on this road-like gravel stretch that turns out to be our driveway. I can just tell the driveway will need some more rocks to fill in the big divots that throw us all over the place. The barn we pull up to clearly needs some love; just looking at it you know that you won’t be able to roll the doors open and that the inside will need some help to store all of the equipment Dad is planning on getting. I continue to think she’s lost it as the green paint looks like it belongs in a picture of Oklahoma. She sees this man walking towards the car and explains he’s the realtor.
Tours, rocks, smells.
This old lady has had so many animals in every area of this ranch. I understand she rescues them, but I don’t think she can truly take care of them like the poor animals need. The main house is mostly fine, creaky on every floorboard and you can hear the wind like you’re in a hurricane. Momma has always been able to envision what she would do with a space. I sadly got my dad’s visionary abilities, looking around while nodding even though I had no idea what she meant. She then tells me that she has so many things she wants to save from this place. The guest house is a different story altogether. The horrendous smell of feces, urine, and death rushes towards us as soon as we open the door to the scariest narrow stairs. The realtor looks at us and says “This is where she has her ‘special needs’ animals.” We walk in and I’m horrified, so many dogs, scratching, barely moving, looking sickly. It takes everything in me not to cry or gag.
We leave the houses and begin the fun tour, the tour of the property. We join the realtor in his UTV truck. He drives like crazy, but it’s so fun I tell Momma we need one for the property if we buy it. We drive around the property and prep to go to the point. Seeing as this property is on the Yellowstone River, it is a waterfront property. The property is on a big curve in the river, so the property has what is called a point, an area right on the water where people can pull in boats for a break or snack. We head down and see how much work the land needs. It hasn’t had water in years. She has donkeys on the property that can’t graze because there’s no place for that. I can’t imagine her having rescue horses here, she had so many on her property you can see the graveyard marked by the piles of rocks that were clearly thrown over the deceased. After the horrific realization that so many animals would’ve been buried on the land, we tried our best to imagine what all this land could look like after being taken care of. The realtor and Momma begin talking about environmentally friendly ways to return this land to its glory and help farmers or the community on the Yellowstone River. Apparently, Momma has reached out to someone named Pete. With the help of Pete and his close-knit community of water supply people, other farm personnel, and environmental-focused friends, we could return the acreage to beautiful rolling fields of tall grasses, not just weeds and rocks that have taken over every inch.
Sold, Planning, Meetings.
The ranch is ours. We start trying to come up with names for the ranch, learning all we can about what we do next. We took a trip to Bozeman to see where my grandparents lived while my grandfather was stationed out in Montana for the military. We eat amazing food, wander around Main Street, and go into meetings with different people. I couldn’t even tell you what we were in those meetings for. I was just sitting there bored for the most part. Attempting to save me from boredom, Momma taught me even more about community and how everyone knows each other; they’ve been building, constructing, or working together for years. She taught me about what to look for in reviews, who to trust, and why you should always get a second opinion. She is the smartest person I know and this trip was the best for us to be together and get a break from life in Park City.
There and Back
I ended up in the middle for the first stretch of the ride because “as the oldest you must always put your siblings first”. Thanks Mom. We had tried to convince my parents we should fly to our destination, but Mom wanted to see the country hills and Dad was determined to give road tripping another attempt. We had downsized from our usual three rowed Tahoe, a staple for soccer games and long drives for the Chait family, to a two row SUV. Dad was worried the old Tahoe would break down halfway to Tennessee, but as a passenger I was willing to take the risk. Two eight hour days crammed into the backseat with Ella, my sister who’s sass and snapchat addiction was unmatched, and Eli, my brother, who’s menace behavior hid beneath his sweet smile. Nobody listens. So I sat squished in the middle, head bobbing as I balanced my two napping siblings, whose heads had caused my fingers to go numb, with the bright yellow puke bucket straddled between my thighs. We were off.
The first two hours of the trip nearly had me fooled. Gazing out the window I watched as we left Texas behind and headed across the swamps of Louisiana. The swamps were an eerie place; the surface of the water sparkled in the sun luring passerby in but beneath everything were gators and swamp critters waiting to pounce. But from the silence of the car, I could admire its beauty, I was safe from the chaos that hid below. Dad slammed the brakes of the car as we approached the first traffic jam, “Fucking Christ Jason”, Mom muttered. He scoffed at her returning the remark with one of the usual nasty comments. Here we go again. Ella woke up, and stretched her arms to the roof of the car, smacking me in the face on her way up. “Opps” she giggled. I glared at her and closed my eyes. Just ignore it.
The next morning we started the day on the highway to Mississippi. Every road sign that was passed with the word Mississippi on it gave rise to an intense competition between Eli and Ella. Who could spell it correctly and the fastest. “Missppi” Eli screamed in my ear. “No stupid that’s wrong,” Ella remarked. Mom told Ella to cut the attitude, but then Dad chose to chime in “well she’s right, he is wrong ”. Of course he would, it was Ella, she could do no wrong. More bitter words were exchanged in the front seat and after ten minutes of back and forth, the parents stopped speaking to each other. Silence is better than fighting.
We drove through the state of Georgia through hill after hill…after hill. “How much more minutes”, a classic sentence of little kids in the car used with the sole intention of irritating the driver, except my brother preferred his own spin, which lacked proper grammatical form. A part of me believes he was just trying to annoy Dad even more. Like poking a stick into a wasp nest, Eli can be a menace but he isn’t stupid. “Say it again and you lose the i-pad”, Dad replied. Eli didn’t speak again until we arrived in Tennessee.
The days that followed were over before we could blink. Three traumatic spider encounters in the bedrooms of the house, tears shed on the roller coaster, and a sprained ankle from hiking. Now it was time to head back.
We threw our bags into the car and squished into the empty space between them. No one spoke. What was at one point our relaxing escape, was now something we were escaping from. I tried to sleep for most of the ride back, hoping I could fall into a dream where I was frolicking in an oasis of serenity. That only lasted an hour. I woke up to twenty-seven snap chat alerts from Ella who sat to my right, every picture a uniquely unflattering angle of me in my most vulnerable state. Three of them had been posted to her story. After that I could no longer fall asleep.
Moving back through Mississippi, Eli had lost all self control. He tossed his bouncy ball at the ceiling over and over each time with a little less control. Ella had gone through every snapchat filter and left with no other options decided to join him in the backseat ball toss. I sunk deeper into the middle seat, trapped. Dad made a swift lane change and Ella lost control, launching the ball at my moms head. It was like time froze. The backseat went still and we all held our breaths. Brace for impact. Both parents began to scream and scold us; they’d cracked. Mom turned to look at the backseat, a tear rolled down her cheek, “why can’t you all just behave”.
The final stretch of our ride landed us smack in the middle of Houston during rush hour. Talk about going out with a bang. Two hours of road rage, swerving, holding the yellow puke bucket now no longer empty, and we were finally home. I dumped the bucket in the grass, and my sibling stretched their legs in the driveway, Mom had already gone inside to attend to the dog. As I helped Dad with the bags and trash cluttered on the floor of the rental car, he groaned in exasperation. “Next time we fly”. Biting my tongue I walked away, I felt heavier than before worn down; I had no sympathy left. Nobody listens.
This is…Fulano
When pushed down it reveals a “pito”, wooden base with a red tip. A child’s toy if you will that is meant to bring laughter.
Inside of four cement walls and a metal roof are hands so tiny he can barely hold the ax, he needs to use two hands. Mama growls at him “Ve por un pedazo del árbol.” Running out the door, going through the street he spots the most perfect tree he’s ever seen. “Ese” he tells himself. With bark so dark and rough, rays always shining on its leaves, and a soft breeze that swayed, left and right. Three mighty swings and a piece of the tree comes off big enough to make into a llavero. Dragging the wood, beads of sweat running down his face, he finally reaches his family’s shop.
A big thump rings from the table as mom places the wood down ready to start. Her moves, so slick and smooth, powerful yet soft, a machete makes its way around the wood and bark. Slimmer each time, only a small cylinder left. “Ya casi está listo” she says. A few carves later, what’s left is a base ready to be painted. Music in the background reminding mom of her youth. The merengue, cumbia, and salsa. As if time could stop, a cup of water with brushes comes out and a paint set so old. Brush stroke after brush stroke, the mountains of El Salvador come alive. “Esta perfecto” she exhales.
After it all, they realize this is the process to create joy and laughter. It begins so small.
Seized from his vast, tranquil, lush, and colorful home. Ripped from his connection to mother nature just to be slashed and remolded. Now on the cold table, the giant female hovers above his natural state with a large razor-edged object, coming down at him from all angles. Losing parts of him and changing his smooth greenish-brown bark into a rainbow of colors that are old and unnatural. The unknown loud sounds coming from all around and her hot breath all over him, is this hell?
No control nor authority. Now with his learned helplessness mindset, the giant paints a smile and places him on the shelf to await his fate.
After it all, he realizes happiness and joy is a selfish concept.
The Roots that Bind Us
Bushels of dead plants blur past the speeding car window. Dead jojobas face down to the earth, begging for a taste of water after the summer drought. Resting near the jojobas, cacti of all sizes swarm abandoned boulders while chollas spring from the ground and drape over while hiding some cottontails. Trees of all assortments – yet all leafless – come to visibility as the truck passes them. Mesquites and Palo Verdes stretch out onto the road that leads to the Mexican border, waving “Goodbye! Safe Travels!” but inside that brown Chevrolet truck, silence fills the air.
No music plays, no one speaks to one another, and no air can refresh the scorching heat of the Arizona desert. Gazing out to the window, I inspect the saguaros. They hold out their arms to embrace the heavens as if in some prayer—perhaps asking for permission to caress their fellow saguaros yet ultimately facing the consequences of their bodies.
In my hands, wax crayons crumble down onto the long-forgotten card that spells out “Hope you feel better Nana!” A girl holding her Nana’s hand is depicted in the card. Blue borders and red corners frame the card in an attempt to mimic store-bought greeting cards. Will she forgive me for being distant this summer? Yet, the card remains unfinished, as I tightly grip my crayon in contemplation.
The car approaches the Mexican-American border, and clicks of seatbelts resonate through the car as everyone hurriedly buckles up. After a few greetings and head nods with the border patrol, the car passes through to the maze-like streets of Nogales, Sonora.
People fill the streets selling assortments of treats and souvenirs. Sunburnt men roam the street, pouring soapy water over car windows and wiping them with rags in hopes of getting some extra change for their families. In the distance, women walk with babies hanging from their backs while others carry displays full of shimmering bracelets. They walk near the car, sweat dripping down their foreheads, with their children holding out the bracelets. Their pained smiles wash sadness over me.
Pity, anger, and indignant sympathy. I was born in a different country, sharing the same blood as them, but a wall is the only thing that sets us apart. We are the same, but they suffer for that singular difference. I feel like a stranger.
The vibrant sunset covers the sky with hues of yellow, orange, pink, and purple. Yet, the car remains silent. From a distance, the landscape becomes a murky gray until navy blue coats the starry sky. The Arizona desert was left behind, with mountains now beaming from the ground, rising high into the sky. Did we have to leave this late? Why not tomorrow?
There is no end to this road.
Lights emerge from behind a large mountain and a city comes into view. The windows roll down, granting the hot air permission to enter and blow my overgrown bangs from side to side.
Trees, grass, water. Foreign, yet home– at least for my parents. Here, I am supposed to be my other half. A second identity—one that I have neglected and yet, one that I must embrace. My roots intertwine, connecting those that run deeper and bring both sides together. But is this my home?
Crackle. Wind. Burn. Bustling local businesses serve crowds of laughing people. The crowds yell in excitement and swing their arms in the air, perhaps intoxicated with glee or the alcohol they had consumed. Smoke fills the streets with the sweet smell of carne asada. Salivating on cue like a dog, I stick out my head, pouting, and begging my father with my eyes. He shakes his head. “Wait a bit more,” his look says. I sigh and with yearning, watch the vendors yell “¡Comenle, comenle! ¡Tan ricos que están estos tacos!” to passersby cars. After a few turns on streets with condiment-sounding names, a large, dimly lit building takes over the view. Large. Blue. Gated.
Something is wrong. Ambulances periodically arrive as paramedics hurriedly unload patients. We step out of the overcrowded car and into a pool of humid air. My father, with downturned eyebrows, his eyes glistening under the light, steps out last. I stare at him, frozen in my tracks, and watch him rush to see his nine other siblings who wait outside of the building anxiously. Nervously, I hold onto my mother.
My family remains in their own little bubble that oozes stress. They pace and wait for surgery results regarding my Nana. She is the embodiment of kindness, of warmth, of wisdom. She is one of my deepest roots. She is our everything. But why are they so scared?
I perch myself on a dry fountain, pick at the oxidized paint chippings, and wonder where we will stay for the rest of this unforetold night. Car seats might become our beds for the night, I think. The rough cement pricks on my legs, cousins scratch their itchy lice-infested heads, and bugs dance around the dim, flickering light that illuminates the dark depths of the night.
I stare, confused at the trees that swayed with the little bit of wind there was, and wonder, how long will I be away from home?
Both times I’ve almost died were by drowning. The first was serene, like falling asleep to a lullaby from the next room. It was like listening to a siren’s song: the slow loss of energy, swimming too far from shore to return. Tired legs, laughter. A runaway riptide. We’d joke about it, my sisters and I, oh, remember when we went out all together? Remember how we wanted to go swimming again later that afternoon? I didn’t wholly comprehend the severity of it until after, when my parents finally explained their point of view– trying to keep their children afloat, one too many kids and one too many miles from shore. If they’d have had one less, they said, they could have each held one of us and swam back. Later, as my mother told the story, she turned to put her hand on my ankle from the front seat of the car. A reflexive check. A making sure.
The excitement of Christmas had just passed, leaving everyone pleasantly empty. Relaxed. As the shore slowly receded, my parents gathered my sisters and I. My mother, who did not look terrified, was not an incredible swimmer. She’s good with endurance, and was fine to hold my sister afloat, but she could not fathom the swim back to shore. My father, a much better swimmer, still couldn’t take the other two of us back at once. The water churned around them. Could you hold one more? he must have asked, intending to swim back with one of us and then return. No, I really can’t. I won’t make it with both of them until you come back. My stomach turns now, remembering it, but at the time it felt just like swimming. Arms around, legs in little circles, bobbing up and down. I guess it was a little further than usual, and why were they whistling for help? Usually we swam fine alone. I could even go in the water up to my knees without them next to me, as long as I had my sisters. As long as they were watching. It felt a little like a test. Maybe they were seeing if we were good enough swimmers to go alone, like at camp, where we would tread water for five minutes. As we climbed out, legs exhausted, we’d be rewarded with popsicles and the sun drying our towels and our hair.
It was more than an hour. Even they don’t remember exactly how long we were out there, an uncrossable channel between us and the sandy ground. I remember smiling on the way back to shore, hands happily wrapped around the foam buoy, being dragged along by a lifeguard. He was younger than my parents, but was asking them questions in authoritative Spanish. He commented on how we looked relaxed, my sisters and I, and I remember thinking that was unusual. Should I have been scared? Of what? I don’t know how they managed, carrying three eight year old bodies, clumsy limbs unused to swimming, not displaying an ounce of visible fear. Hands, feet, leaden legs. More than an hour. Mom, how much longer? Are we there yet? Adrenaline, I suppose. When the other option is sinking with your child, allowing water into your mouth and hers, your legs keep up.
The second time, my father saved me. The second time, I wasn’t really drowning– or, more accurately, I shouldn’t have been. It was shallow enough that I could just barely graze the ground with my toes if I tried, and I knew this. I was at most a step forward away from being able to stand, my head resting comfortably above the water. I don’t remember when or why, but I remember my feet slipping from under me, the sand suddenly unstable. Unsafe. The feeling of water in my nose, my mouth, the panicked thrashing to anywhere that felt more like air than liquid. I think I screamed, or tried to, but I can’t say with any certainty that any air actually left my lungs, or that any sound escaped to the surface. It may have been the noise, the burst of white bubbles and disappearance of my head under the water, the sudden and wild reappearance of random limbs that drew his attention. It occurred to me that I was definitely being dramatic, God, just put your feet down, walk to shore, calm down. It almost occurred to me to pray. A prayer of salvation, what a foreign concept. I remember the terror, the coughing, the way I thought I was going to break open at the ribs. The way I would have clawed out my throat to breathe.
It could have been no more than thirty seconds before I was scooped out of the water and whisked ashore. I wasn’t far from the picnic table where my parents and their friends were sitting, sharing a bottle of wine and catching up. My dad’s wine glass was now shattered, small pieces of glass adorning the rocks of the path to the water. The rocks did more damage to him than the water did to me, and the guilt over his bloody feet puddled around me. Someone wrapped a towel around my shoulders as I sank onto the dock, and someone else asked me what happened. My dad swore from somewhere above me, an almost divine presence hobbling over me to prop his feet up on the table. I could barely stand to look at the lake. Its surface remained placid, interrupted only by the splashing of my sisters who had risen, like mermaids, from the glistening water. Their eyes mirrored my parents’, who were looking equally concerned and expectant. I couldn’t explain why I deserved to be saved, why in water I could have stood in, I made my father bleed. I was wholly crying by then, wracking sobs into a pink and purple towel. I could still feel the water pressing the back of my throat, the sand unsteady under my feet. My hair dripped, leaving small beads of water on the dock.
I miss you more than I remember you—집에 간다
It was a summer of the hottest days I’d ever known, of great rains and thunder, of long nights and a great quiet that stretched through me. It was the summer I finally went home. Korea is my motherland, but she was a mother that did not want this child. I spent the summer grieving and found no solace for it. I was twenty years old; filled with a longing that could not, and would not be answered.
I stand on the same university steps my grandmother had once stood, wondering if she is proud of me. The air is thick and warm, and I can barely breathe against it. The pear trees are shaking, the wind blowing through them fast and frenzied. The heat makes me rotten inside, and I wonder if she can see it from wherever she is. I am her daughter’s daughter, but I am strange and half formed, broken somewhere deep. I speak her language now, but it’s no use now that she’s gone. The storm clouds are gathering, and I feel them like a physical weight against my body. I wonder if the people that pass by can see the open wound I carry. Whatever I was looking for, it’s not here.
Long days studying stretch into longer nights. I spend them on the streets, in the clubs, at the bars. Time did not pass linearly in Korea—I look back and all I can remember are vignettes—disparate moments that create the narrative of my life for that time. My friends and I roam wild and free—a whole host of college-aged American born Korean kids, here for the summer, here to reclaim what was lost. We eat tender pork belly, wash it down with raw garlic, fresh kimchi, and mild beer. We cheer, play games, and dance our hearts out until it is morning again. All the people do here is work, study, and drink. We follow suit. I grow more and more tired each day, but there is always something more to do, something that we have to make time for before we leave. I am sick with my desire to go home, but I am home. The best part of my night is the walk back, where I lose myself to my music and the dark blue sky, where the stray cats follow me home and I am finally alone.
Jabez and I sit on the curb, awash in our hazed drunken states. Jabez was born in Portland too. We grew up under a canopy of clouds, watered daily by the rain, kept safe under the towering trees of the Pacific Northwest. Jabez is also Korean, just like I am, but he is the son of two Korean citizens, and cannot be here for more than three months or they will conscript him. Jabez is gay too, just like I am, and we recognize the same heartbreak in each other’s eyes. But for now, we are here, it is summer, and we are so painfully young. The nights we spend in Itaewon on “Homo Hill,” imprint themselves on my mind—the drag queens painted with glitter, the girls with their brightly colored hair, and the way we can feel the music’s vibrations resound in our hearts.
It is raining but it always rains here. The temple glows by candlelight and a golden Buddha smiles down on us. It’s grandiose, all red pillars and gilded edges. We stand next to each other, strange and new, my twin sister on one side, my best friend from home on the other. A monk walks by us and the length of our shorts feels sacrilegious. Lightning flashes but it does not deter those who have come to seek comfort amongst the deep red-blue-greens of the temple walls and the lanterns that flicker above. On the steps above us, they bow. The more bows, the more devout their wish. In each of our hands is a colorful votive carved with the animal zodiac from the year we were born. They beg us to write our wishes on them, but we are too shy to respond to their calls. I hold the ram’s head in my hand, knowing exactly what is written on my heart. I hide it anyway and write down something paltry, a deformed wish about getting good grades. Still, I turn it away so they can’t see.
My mother stares down at the steps that descend and then reach up to the sky. It’s been years since she’s returned to Korea and I know that it feels stranger and stranger each time she comes back. I know because I feel it too. The glass on either side of us reflects the blue of the sky and the building melts into the ground as it rises up beside us. It looks different, she says, than how I remember it. Then how it was when her mother was here. Do you think she would be proud? Despite what I am? I bite my tongue and the questions hang in the air like a loaded gun—one that I hold behind my mother’s back, out of sight.
My sister and I grasp each other’s hands—the dancers have assembled, and the familiar notes of arirang cascade towards us. My beloved one. The tears flash hot and heavy, summoned by the song, living on memories that we thought had long faded. I meet her eyes and the devastation I feel is mirrored in them. Our grandmother, 할머니, was beautiful here, and at her most brilliant. This was her holy ground, her site of prayer. The beat of the drum, the quick movement of the fans, the dancers’ bodies flowing together—the choreography that was her life’s work. I still remember that critical eye, piercing and pointed, landing on everyone around her. Her red ballet shoes, her perfectly manicured nails, and her love of coffee with milk. Years have passed, and I hold onto these memories still, I carry them with me everywhere I go. I craved Korea for so long, but I am beginning to realize that I am craving the one from years ago—the one that still belonged to her.
I sit at the temple once again, alone this time. A Buddha statue towers twenty feet tall above me. There is no god, but I need forgiveness. I need to know. I bow and I bow and I bow, but there is no answer to my prostrations. The Buddha does not bow back. Behind me is all of Seoul, sprawled across the Han River. At the peak, the blue of the sky swallows me up, and the longing that has been killing me finally shifts into something greater, something bright and new. I call to the quiet, and it doesn’t answer back. I leave something behind in that moment, but I am glad to see it go.
The joy is sharp here and it cuts into me. Smiling faces everywhere, that look like my own. A foreign feeling made familiar. Rainbow flags waving, glittering paint on faces, hands that reach for me. The heat is still unbearable, but for now my happiness will shield me from it. In the periphery, I see protesters shouting about sinners, hell, and all that is damned. They fade away into obscurity next to the brazen colors of Pride, unable to compete with the wave of thousands descending upon Seoul Plaza. We will never be what we once were. I know this now. The grief remains, but the joy is born anew and I feel them both in every breath. The music is deafening, the crowd’s chorus all consuming. The sound fills my heart until it overflows. I grasp my sister’s hand. We allow the wave to swallow us, and we don’t come up for air.
Chico (Ang/El)
The Manilkara zapota fruit, commonly known as sapodilla, sapote, chicozapote, etcetera, is a brown, grainy, fleshy little thing. You can eat it peel on, but I prefer to eat it sans skin, eliminating the experience of tongue on fuzz to focus instead on the smoothness of sinking my teeth in, sweet juice spilling to coat my throat. In the Philippines, we call it chico.
On Sunday mornings we would make the trip to Carbon. Carbon, in my memory, is a dangerous place. One of the oldest markets in the Philippines, its potholed streets are lined by baskets filled with overflowing produce, nipa storefronts selling toy ukuleles for kids, low grey rooms displaying aquariums overstocked with fish. And in some of the baskets, sometimes, there are chicos. Rare finds.
Carbon is where you go when you need good food, cheap, and so every Sunday morning we would make the trip. The taxi would stop on the market’s fringe, and then my parents, holding one of us each tightly by the hand, would haggle and bargain and sniff and weigh, working their way into the center. Mostly, I would zone out, looking instead all around me to wonder at the colors and the noise and the smells, returning to myself only when someone came too close, clutching my little pink handbag tightly to my chest. Seven-year-olds, obviously, are the primary targets of snatchers.
All this would change as soon as we made it to the fruit section. What do you want? my father would ask, and suddenly we were checked in. “Rambutan! Sineguelas! Mangoes, please!” We would sniff and weigh and pick with them, then step back as they spoke with the vendors, eyes shifty, eager. Were there chicos in Carbon today? We would circle like eagles, missing nothing. When we found it, we would not celebrate, not yet. Immature chico tastes chalky, is dry and firm. Sniffing and weighing and picking was, in this case, a sacred scientific process, all the scientific training from first grade brought to bear for these critical moments. My father taught me to feel for firmness near the stem, to see which ones were brown and which ones were brown brown. When all else failed, to ask the vendor, smiling sweetly, if we could buy just one at first, just to taste.
In December of that year, the last Sunday before Christmas, somehow there were chicos, and somehow the chicos were ripe. I came home with the plastic bag double-knotted and hugged tightly to my chest, bruising the fruit, I’m sure, in the process. At home we set them aside and busied ourselves with putting up the decorations, mixing marinades for Christmas eve dinner, preparing for the agape Christmas day lunch. My father lifted all my thirty kilos so I could put the angel on the tree, a yearly tradition. “Save the chico for Christmas,” mom tells us, but when she’s asleep my father comes to our room, pulls a chico from his pocket, peels. We split the chico in three, laughing in whispers, orange in the glow of our nightlight, taking turns until the final bite, and then wiping our hands on our pajamas and climbing back into bed, mouths still sticky with juice. “Merry Christmas,” we whisper, to our dad then to each other, then switch off the light.
The Manilkara zapota tree is endemic to Central America and the Caribbean. The first Spaniards crossing the Atlantic found Manilkara zapota at the heart of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. Their great cities were built of stone and sapodilla wood, their temples held together by sapodilla resin. They offered sapodilla seeds to their gods, grinded sapodilla leaves to blend into incense, cooked its sap to make tzictli, from the Náhuatl verb tzicoa, to stick. Chewing the tzictli in public was taboo in Aztec civilization—an activity only for children, prostitutes, and old maids—, a culture that, like many others, was quickly made obsolete by Spanish men. I imagine the sailors of the Acapulco galleon trade, crossing the Pacific on naos de China—so-called Chinese ships crafted and steered by indentured Filipino men—, saved from scurvy, for now, by the stores of zapote in the holds below. They chew idly, white foam leaking out the sides of their mouths, then spit, chapped lips pulling back over stained yellow teeth, a lonely pellet soaring over the side of the ship, arcing in the wind, slipping gracefully into sea.
Over four hundred years since the trade’s end, I take the route of the galleon, transposed into sky. When I arrive in Peru, now twenty-two, I am in a constant state of happy surprise. Sugar apples, singkamas, adobo, lechon – these things crossed the ocean too. Which things originally came from the Philippines, which from Latin America, and which from, god forbid, Spain, I don’t know, but I don’t really care. What matters is that I get to be a cheerful regular at Mercado Wanchaq, eagerly trading my five soles for giant smoothies reminiscent of those made by my grandmother, or paying seven for familiar two-course meals and a drink. On my way out, I stop by the produce section, where I haggle and bargain and sniff and weigh, familiar with fruit my European roommates find exotic. I climb to my apartment with heavy plastic bags double knotted and leaving tender red indents on my fingers, the thin air of Cusco doing more damage than the six flights of stairs. Call my boyfriend, my grandmother, my sister, like a kindergartener eager for her turn at show-and-tell. “Look at this chisa! It’s the size of my head!” My mother, just now awake, smiles blearily from the other side of the world, pours oil on a pan, loves me as she starts beating her eggs.
One afternoon as we are cutting through the mercado, my friend Vanessa stops me, excited. “Tienes que probar esto!” She is holding out a strange fruit, long and oval, its skin a smooth dark orange. “Que es?” “Un nispero.” She turns to the lady, asks, with the same sweet smile I learned in Carbon: “Podemos probar uno?” You have to wash fruit in Peru before you eat them, a lesson I learned the hard way weeks ago, but when the vendedora nods, Vanessa peels the fruit, and I bite.
Nispero. Sourer than I was used to and with a strange peachy note, there was no mistaking the sugary, malty taste, the dark hooked seeds. “We have this too!” I tell Vanessa. “We call it chico.” “Chico? No, no, no, it’s too good to be called chico.” Vanessa is in a situationship with an older German unable to commit, and I have spent the last two months convincing her to end things. I tell her to leave my fruit out of her love life. Later that night, when the chico viejo calls, she picks up on the second ring and throws her jacket on a few minutes later, saying she loves me, she’ll tell me all about it in the morning, don’t look at her with that face. I walk her to the gate and laugh at her, because what else is there to do, and then get ready to meet my roommates out for dinner. When she finally ends it with him it will be another two months later, and she will be calling me to come with tissues and wine, but for now she texts me the heart eye emoji and I text her back a knife. Later that night, when everyone but me has fallen asleep, I call my father. “There’s chico here,” he should know. I hold it up to the camera, watch him move his phone two inches from his face. “They call it nispero.”
My father, in that Christmas of the chico, had gone the extra mile. Santa Claus didn’t just come to town—he visited every single one of our favorite stores, left clues and small gifts with part-time elves. We collected: happy meals from McDonald’s, books from Fully Booked, candy from my grandmother’s house. The treasure hunt led us around the city and finally back to our house, where a veritable trove awaited us. We tore through presents then tore through dinner, Josh Groban’s slow crooning doing little to slow us down, I’ll be home for Christmas nothing but background noise to the feast of pancit and lechon and lumpia and cake. I remember that after dinner we were full, that we were sleepy, that we fell asleep on the sofa and forgot about the chico, that were carried to bed in my parents’ skinny, warm arms, that they grunted when they lifted us, smoothed our hair after they tucked us in. Kissed us, softly, goodnight.
That night I woke up in the dark. It was cold, so at first, I burrowed deeper into the sheets, searched for my sister’s warmth. Finding nothing, I rose, annoyed, blanket still wrapped around me, sure she had abandoned me for my parents’ bed. Feet bare and blinking away sleep, I plodded into the hall, only to walk into her, stood there, frozen. This was how it felt: like I was in a field of crushed flowers, standing under white-lit empty sky, encircled by a gray sea full of once-living things. Out of nowhere: apocalypse. This was the reality: a small living room of crushed things. A moment of time when all was suspended. Only my father moved and moved things, a whirlwind. A dining table leg snapped against kitchen wall. A picture frame shattered. A Christmas angel beheaded on the floor. My mother frantic, and angry, and pleading. And when he saw me, when I started to shout, a heavy, special bowl, sent spinning. The last clear image, in the blur of the days that followed: the chico, a fragrant, brown brown, splattered mess on the ground.
In the years to come I will think about the chico. Impossible to find in the rainy, storm-frequented town up north where my mother moved us, I will be unable to let that final image go. Not six months later, when I regain my voice, start to learn the new language. Not six years past, when my parents somehow reconcile. Not until another two years have gone by, and I return home to Cebu for the first time, for Christmas. Past midnight on Christmas eve when festivities are over, when I have smiled through my share of “You’ve gotten so tall”s and “You have your father’s nose”s, when the house is finally emptied of guests, I lie in our childhood bed, sleepless. Careful not to wake my sister, I rise and wander the strange, shrunken house, wonder at the bright new paint, the unfamiliar smells. I find my father in the kitchen, a chico in his hands, peeling. He stands, hunched, in total darkness. The clock ticks. He says nothing, keeps his eyes on the fruit. So do I. When he hands me a piece, I bite.
Google informs me that since the galleon trade, the chico has made its way from Manila to Thailand and from there to China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Vietnam. Separately, direct from Latin America, it has traveled north to Hawaii and South Florida, has made its way down to New Zealand and Australia, has crossed the Atlantic to South Africa. It is, today, a garden fruit as well as a crop, and there are so many names and cultivars I lose count. This simple fruit. Its infinite forms.
As I travel, I encounter the chico again and again. Brownish green and called the Hồng Xiêm in Hanoi, made into jams and smoothies and pie. As expensive naseberry concentrate in artisanal stores in Tampa Bay. In candy at the largest Asian supermarket in Geneva. Never the easiest to peel by hand, I eat the fruit skin-on nowadays, impatient for the taste, unwilling to sit through a process I compare to peeling grapes. Each time, I think back to all the hands I’ve watched gently forming rifts on skin, pinching fuzzy edge and smoothing it down, careful not to waste any flesh. Holding the fruit out for me to taste. I remember fruit peeled for and fruit given, fruit shared and fruit forgotten and fruit smashed. I bring what I can home with me, when I can.
When I come home, I leave the candy on the counter, store the jam in the fridge. “Guess what I found,” I ask my father, tossing him a piece, nudging him to move over on the couch, let me sit.
Notes on Growing Up
Cooking blows. Or so I used to say, approximately one year ago before I moved into a Boston apartment with three male Northeastern University sophomores. I had similarly bombastic sentiments about grocery shopping and meal prep— namely, how useless, aggravating, and time consuming it was. I would much rather spend my time doing something else (which was code for “my PS4 is waiting in the other room, and I don’t want to stand here and make sure this pasta water doesn’t boil over”). Now that I had freedom over my eating habits and the ability to leave my apartment to go grocery shopping whenever I wanted to, I thought cooking may be slightly less painstaking; freedom of choice, baby. Contrary to the ingredient household my parents built, I would be able to create my own utopia of frozen vegetables and canned soup. This lasted for approximately 10 days. Ten days before I knew the bliss of Wollaston’s sandwich counter, the ease of picking up shawarma on the way back from the T, and how amazing it was that I could get curly fries from Cappy’s until 3AM, every single day.
I blew through a lot of money in not a lot of time. I needed a job, and I needed to chill on those curly fries, as good as they were. I found a groove in couponing at CVS, learned how to moderate my produce purchases to avoid smells in the fridge, and decided that olive oil made everything taste better than butter ever did. I was learning how to cook, how to plan and prepare, how much garlic I preferred (a lot), among other important life skills; the only problem that remained was how much I still hated being in the kitchen. I didn’t like how my shirt smelled after frying up falafel on the stove, and I could never seem to escape the oily feeling after handling pots and pans in the kitchen (though, looking back, it was probably because of my roommates’ poor cleaning habits). The aspects I enjoyed were sniffing my hands after mincing garlic and, of course, eating. I would make sure my efforts were low and my speed was fast in the kitchen, cleaning as I cooked and escaping to the common room to eat rather than sit at the kitchen table.
I wasn’t entirely alone in my struggle. My roommates were grappling with their own bad habits in the kitchen, but they didn’t seem to be bothered by simply existing in there as much as I was.
I was airing these complaints to a friend of mine one night. Amanda, a Rhode Island School of Design student, had become one of my closest friends during my year off. We were introduced to each other by a mutual friend who grew up with Amanda and met me at Smith— as we became closer, she would take the commuter rail to Boston almost every weekend, romp around with me and a few other people, and buy hair bleach or skincare or snacks before crashing on our couch and leaving the next day after waking up at noon. We bonded over gaming and hating, volleyball and artwork, and often wishing we were anywhere else when the weather started to get cold. That particular day, after complaining about how disinterested I was in cooking the same rice and the same broccoli and the same marinated chicken thigh, Amanda offered to throw together something for us to eat. She had spotted a brand of Japanese golden curry powder cubes she liked earlier that day, and decided now was the perfect time to crack open the package. I acted as her sous-chef that night, and after an hour and a half of chopping, boiling, stirring, and waiting, we had a feast upon us. It was amazing, and I wasn’t pissed by the time I was eating. I attributed that to her presence, being able to talk and banter with someone I enjoyed being around rather than stuck between my headphones, trying to skip a Youtube ad with raw chicken grime on every single finger except for my left pinky. The mood between us was new and almost glorious. I wouldn’t know it yet, but that 3.2oz Semi-Hot S&B Golden Curry Sauce mix would be the start of something beautiful.
Amanda and I cooking together became a semi-regular occurrence; that curry was on repeat the most, but eventually we tried chinese cucumber salad, chao nian gao, tea eggs, and various other dishes. She left written recipes on the fridge for me to follow along with when she was gone, and I began to memorize the steps and ingredients. Chao nian gao was one of my favorites, and I made sure to consistently have rice cakes in the fridge to whip out whenever I felt like I had enough energy to use the wok. I was beginning to feel significantly less angry in the kitchen, though it was never perfect. Small errors would frustrate me, and sometimes the sight of raw chicken would put me in a dour mood. Nevertheless, the kitchen was on the come up. I had developed an insight towards what I liked and what I hated, and it became easier to decide on what to cook and when to cook it. I hadn’t mastered meal prep, and the closest I ever got to that was making 8 tea eggs at once for the week; that didn’t matter to me though, and after a few months of Amanda I had realized cooking wasn’t the bane of my existence anymore.
Time passed; by the time spring rolled around, I was working in a restaurant in Cambridge. A mid-priced pizza joint, and I wasn’t cooking for myself too much anymore. Why would I, when 75% off and infinite free pastries meant it became more economical to eat at work compared to buying food in the middle of Boston? The closest grocery, Wholefoods, was selling boneless skinless thighs for 8 dollars a pound. I hate Wholefoods. Regardless, I wasn’t in the kitchen much. In a way, it was a dream not having to clean dishes and silverware after making a meal, but I found myself missing Amanda’s (and in a way my own) cooking. The summer flew by, and before I knew it, I was packing up my room and moving across the state to Northampton, Massachusetts.
I’m back at Smith and on a meal plan. Focusing on academics rather than making meals is obviously ideal in a college setting, but my attitude is completely flipped. I miss making those foods that Amanda taught me, having access to countless spices and sauces and cooking wines that I left behind in that apartment. I later found out that some of the dishes Amanda made for me were meals from her grandmother in China; for her, cooking is a cross-generational activity that is incredibly meaningful. I realize now that she was not only making me hate the kitchen less, but it was her way of showing how much she cared about me. We bonded during that time, and I feel incredibly lucky to have been granted the opportunity to learn from her. Though she’s an art student, she dreams of opening a restaurant one day, to share cuisine with others to help them appreciate what she loves so dearly. Amanda sends me links to recipes every once in a while, and I save them all. I often wonder how deep her connection with some of those foods really goes. I don’t know much about her family, but I do know she hasn’t been back to Fuzhou in a long time. She talks about taking a trip back often and makes “jokes” about going together on a graduation tour. In the back of my head, I’ve been toying with the idea too. If we go, I think that would signify a huge step in our friendship— a leap that I know would move me deeply. Regarding cooking, I won’t be able to prepare my own food for a good chunk of time, and part of me fears that I’ll lose a bit of that bond we share. It seems rather silly, because I know our friendship will last. I just can’t help it. For now, I want to stay close with her, and when the time comes I know that without a doubt we’ll fall back into our culinary routine.
Reckless Beauty in the Mundane
…
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s 1pm on your average Wednesday. The air is crisp, the sky is blue, not a cloud in sight. Instead of lounging outdoors and basking in the warm rays of late-summer sun, your mom is hunkered away in the library, caught in a cycle of retyping the same sentence over and over again. Stress levels are through the roof and there’s a mountain of deadlines to make. It’s just a regular day in September here at Smith College.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s pouring rain and pitch-black outside, but the car keeps zipping down the freeway. She’s without a care in the world, living on a high that only a concert can bring in all its hot, sweaty, and ear-splitting glory. Nonstop ringing, earplugs abandoned on the kitchen counter, amps as tall as two grown men. Rookie mistake. Did you know your mom was on the cusp of morphing into a rocker chick? She’s twenty with a newly discovered thirst for blaring music and crowded venues.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s early April of sophomore year, and your mom just got back from a first date. She’s sitting in her dorm excitedly recounting details to a friend. Everything from his major, hair color, religion, to the way he fidgets when nervous or how he holds devilishly long eye contact, as if casually peering into the very recesses of her soul. Her family would approve of this one, she thought, while mentally running through a list and ticking off each box. Her stomach’s full of butterflies, but it’s a feeling she relishes. In a moment of weakness, perhaps blinded by the fervidness of her crush, what came blurting out was “I think I met my husband today” before squealing like a schoolgirl diagnosed with a case of chronic twiddling legs. Across the room, her ever-realistic friend’s eyes practically roll into back of her head.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s rush hour and everyone is stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Tall and enticing, the sign for In-n-Out seems to materialize out of thin air. Her stomach growls angrily, but the never-ending line of SUVs appear to be moving at snail’s pace, if at all. The pace is stifling. Your mom is sixteen and dangerously armed with a fresh license, questionable decision-making skills, and a hankering need for speed. It’s intoxicating, the ability to barrel down the freeway and leave every problem miles behind. Ridiculous in all the right ways.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s the end of a long day at school and your mom is fighting with her younger brother. Fighting, as in fist-fighting. Being thirteen, she is bigger and stronger, but he has the moral discipline of a seven-year-old and no qualms about attacking full force. Though their skin displays a patchwork of rapidly purpling bruises, they feel closer than ever. It is cathartic, in a way, to let your inhibitions go and become a flurry of flying fists and kicking legs. The fight slows. Your mom has her brother in a vicious headlock. Without realizing, they look at each other and begin laughing. How embarrassing, how predictable. Their eyes are glassy, pooling with tears as bruised limbs begin to ache, but through it all they smile, giggle, cackle, and perhaps even grin like a Cheshire cat.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. Maybe it’s something you’re already familiar with, but your mom has the stubbornness of a mule. One of her closest friends proudly states that together they are an unstoppable force and immovable object, exactly as written in physics for thousands of years. Your mom? She is the immovable object. For every piece of her you know, there are hundreds more that remain hidden away, left untouched in the form of memories. Here are just a few more: she has never received a speeding ticket, she once broke five piano strings in a single month, she has snatched a goose egg from the local duck pond before, she dreams of becoming an immunologist, and she’s known since age five that she’s always wanted to be a mother. Whether predestined or foreordained, you are inevitable in the future she’s envisioned.
Hey kids, it’s your mom here. It’s now 9pm on the same, average Wednesday. The chilly atmosphere has a bite to it, the sky is dark. There is not a cloud in sight. Like a blanket woven from light, a smattering of faintly twinkling stars illuminate the inky night. It’s a recklessly beautiful world painted in shades of dusky twilight. Yet even when presented with such transcendence, she remains hidden away, only this time in the comfort of her own room. Your mother sits cross-legged in a chair, stuck in a loop battling every sentence and word she types. The letters on the page take over, engulfing her in its entirety. This how each of you is born.
The Incomplete Tale
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
It seemed as though Mrs. Clock was mocking me. Tiny LEGO pieces lay scattered across the floor: all different colors and sizes. Some the iconic two studs, some with smooth surfaces. I sat for hours at the center of it all, pondering over my next step.
Every little thing was causing me an inconvenience, or was it just plain irritation? I was missing a piece. Why were these pieces so tiny? It seemed counterintuitive to have pieces integral to holding massive creations together be tiny enough that one might spend two hours looking for them – only to find them snugly lodged in the supple bed provided by one’s calf.
“Nothing has changed in the years since we got you your first set”, said my mother as she walked into the room, while I continued to whine and search frantically for the missing piece.
Slightly larger LEGO pieces lay all across the floor, around a much younger and expressive six-year-old version of myself. Thick pigtails swung in the air, and she looked up at her mother with tears in her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore! Mrs. Clock continues to move forward and remind me how I was going to be finished 2 hours ago! How am I ever supposed to finish this garden without the flower piece? This house can never be completed now…”
My mother’s attempts to make conversation with me, along with the constant chiming of the clock annoyed me further. Each passing hour brought me closer to the deadline I had set to complete my project. As she left the room, my mother reminded me it was time to eat dinner. Apparently, I “need to eat to think better”. Was I not swamped with enough work? There was some delicious pizza that lay waiting to be devoured by yours truly. Oh! How soothing would a warm, cheesy slice of crust and grease feel in a sticky situation like this?
This situation called for standing (ugh) and shaking off the pile of blocks that had formed a little rocky hill on my lap. Getting up, I cracked every stiff joint in my body from hours of sitting on the hard concrete floor, with my posture resembling that of a chicken.
Ms. Missing Piece stayed true to her moniker.
“I definitely haven’t added it in the wrong spot, have I?”
WHAM!
My elbow hit the build. It came crashing down on the hard concrete floor that had, till a few moments ago, been my haven.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
The clock struck again. This was it! I felt fatigued, exhausted and, well, every other synonym that existed for tired. This project wasn’t worth my time. Off to the cheesy bliss of Dominos, we go! I had never left a set uncomplete, though. Or had I?
She couldn’t stop thinking about the incomplete house. It was just a missing flower piece, she thought. That didn’t mean that those tiny figurines in the house had to live in an unfinished house with no roof. It was 9 P.M., past her bedtime, but it was good that she was on vacation. She sat back on the floor and finished that house, sans the flower piece in the garden that was behind the house. Some might think that the set was uncomplete, but for her, it was incomplete, but it was fine, just the way it was.
I never could find that missing flower piece, but I moved on because the house was simply better left incomplete. However, I couldn’t leave this unfinished. I was so close to the end. Even the thought of ooey-gooey pizza couldn’t lure me away from the disaster site. I stayed.
Suddenly, it felt like Mrs. Clock seemed to have better things to do than to mock me on my progress (or lack of). Turning to her, I gasped. It was 2 A.M.- 3 hours since the dilemma of the missing piece had begun, and 9 hours since my project commenced. I become absorbed in new innovations or existing builds needing revamping. 6-year-old me did it, and 20-year-old me still does it. That hasn’t changed. Pieces still get lost, and builds most certainly do collapse, destroying every inch of self-worth I have. Yet, this whole experience is worth it. Large pieces and the annoying tiny feet-attackers, both are integral to the building process.
This model, also known as, GK_MODEL_1, could be the Beta test. What worked and what didn’t for GK_MODEL_1? After figuring out the glitches, I could now build a more efficient structure. I just needed an elegant alternative to the missing annoyance that started this chain of destruction. This would be the improved master build: one to trump them all!
Oh, wait! I think I might’ve solved the problem of the missing piece!
Rummaging through a variety of loose pieces of different shapes and sizes, in a larger purple LEGO-shaped box, also known as my box of spares, I finally found what I had been looking for. The slipper that would fit my Cinderella: a tiny brown grill piece. Each brick clicking together brought my vision to life. Finishing off with the iconic antenna, there stood my LEGO Empire State Building, tall and proud at 22 inches.
Mrs. Clock chimes one last time; it was 4 A.M. But it doesn’t annoy me anymore. A yawn overtakes me, and sleep is the only thing on my mind as I head toward the now-cold pizza that still beckons me.
The long stretch
Fast, chatter, snacking.
Momma and I can talk for hours. Good thing this drive has 8 of them. We talk endlessly switching topics so quickly you never know when one stops and another begins. Some have said being in a car that long with someone can be draining. I find it depends on the person you are with. Learning to drive requires someone you feel safe with, luckily having mastered all the Park City roads, I needed a change. 40 hours of practice driving before getting my license and this will be 16 of them. Momma and Dad made a deal with my brothers and me that each of us would complete a long trip as some of our 40 hours. My brothers went to places like San Diego, California, and Napa Valley, California. Both of those drives were over 10 hours in one direction, so mine was shorter, but that’s fine with me. I wasn’t prepared for the drive to be 8 hours at 85mph on flat barren land that looks like it needs 20 years of good rain. The car is slowly feeling stale with hot breath and the uncomfortable positions both from driving and sitting passenger.
Dry, deserted, flat.
Some would say it’s boring. Driving along desert and wide plains, often no mountains or animals, other than the billions of cows, to look at. While I don’t disagree with that declaration, the drive from Park City, Utah to Pray, Montana can be so interesting (but not this time). In later trips I would see stars shining so brightly, thunderstorms rolling across the valley, and herds upon herds of animals. Seeing a new area will always be interesting to me, especially driving through so many states in one drive. I try to take in all the information about driving, how tired your legs get from driving, and how much the sun glares through the windshield. Having been to Montana before, I try to take notes of things that are “important” or things I have no recollection of seeing before. Driving through college towns, towns that seem smaller than my neighborhood, and seeing all kinds of different or new developments and the different stores surrounding them. All the while Momma and I talk and she teaches me all about where we’ve stopped or why that mountainside looks like it slid into a river. She tells me that a couple of years ago the mountain slid from an earthquake and formed a lake from the landslide. She knows so much and I ask her all my silly questions.
National Parks, Animals, Rivers.
Yellowstone has so much to offer that you can spend so much time in the park. I love Yellowstone, it may be my favorite National Park that I’ve been to. I love the scenery and the history, but I especially love the animals. Yellowstone adds about 2-3 hours depending on routes to take. I focus more on the people being stupid out of their cars and way too close, bison are big, so you should be able to see them perfectly fine from the mostly safe space of your vehicle. You get close enough to these enormous animals without needing to pet one. That’s just an injury waiting to happen. My family has always been one to watch the elk, antelope, and bears for hours. Nowadays, post the Yellowstone River flooding of 2023, we spend hours watching the den of my favorite wolf pack. We always make it a game to see who can spot the most kinds of animals and actually explain where the animal is.
On this trip, there was a bear right on the side of the road hidden at the base of a tree. As Momma was driving while I took a break, I looked down in a slight gully at the base of a tree-full hill. I made Momma flip around to see if it was really a bear or just a branch. It was indeed a little black bear, super precious, which made my momma and I laugh for a good couple of minutes. I ended up causing what many in Yellowstone call a “bear jam,” where traffic piles up to see a bear. I was so proud of myself.
Cramp, Tired, Messy.
After exiting West Yellowstone, we drive through the little towns above the Yellowstone River. Momma switches back into the driver’s seat as she knows this place better than I do. I’m still getting used to driving narrow roads and this one can be especially scary above a very large ravine the Yellowstone River created. Finally, we drive past our ranch and into a town called Livingston. Cramped and numbed by the drive, we fall out of the car into the hotel. We begin noticing things as we go into the room that disgusts us, but we disregard them until we leave. The hotel is musty and I can feel the eyes of old men on me as I walk around, especially around the pool. We settle down for the night and Momma tells me all the plans for the upcoming days, with visiting the ranch she and Dad had visited a couple of weeks ago being one of them.
Fast, dry, rocks.
We turn off the highway onto this dry lot and I look at Momma like she’s crazy. She explains the gate system, where one stops (only a couple acres of land) and the next is our property. We drive down, getting jostled on this road-like gravel stretch that turns out to be our driveway. I can just tell the driveway will need some more rocks to fill in the big divots that throw us all over the place. The barn we pull up to clearly needs some love; just looking at it you know that you won’t be able to roll the doors open and that the inside will need some help to store all of the equipment Dad is planning on getting. I continue to think she’s lost it as the green paint looks like it belongs in a picture of Oklahoma. She sees this man walking towards the car and explains he’s the realtor.
Tours, rocks, smells.
This old lady has had so many animals in every area of this ranch. I understand she rescues them, but I don’t think she can truly take care of them like the poor animals need. The main house is mostly fine, creaky on every floorboard and you can hear the wind like you’re in a hurricane. Momma has always been able to envision what she would do with a space. I sadly got my dad’s visionary abilities, looking around while nodding even though I had no idea what she meant. She then tells me that she has so many things she wants to save from this place. The guest house is a different story altogether. The horrendous smell of feces, urine, and death rushes towards us as soon as we open the door to the scariest narrow stairs. The realtor looks at us and says “This is where she has her ‘special needs’ animals.” We walk in and I’m horrified, so many dogs, scratching, barely moving, looking sickly. It takes everything in me not to cry or gag.
We leave the houses and begin the fun tour, the tour of the property. We join the realtor in his UTV truck. He drives like crazy, but it’s so fun I tell Momma we need one for the property if we buy it. We drive around the property and prep to go to the point. Seeing as this property is on the Yellowstone River, it is a waterfront property. The property is on a big curve in the river, so the property has what is called a point, an area right on the water where people can pull in boats for a break or snack. We head down and see how much work the land needs. It hasn’t had water in years. She has donkeys on the property that can’t graze because there’s no place for that. I can’t imagine her having rescue horses here, she had so many on her property you can see the graveyard marked by the piles of rocks that were clearly thrown over the deceased. After the horrific realization that so many animals would’ve been buried on the land, we tried our best to imagine what all this land could look like after being taken care of. The realtor and Momma begin talking about environmentally friendly ways to return this land to its glory and help farmers or the community on the Yellowstone River. Apparently, Momma has reached out to someone named Pete. With the help of Pete and his close-knit community of water supply people, other farm personnel, and environmental-focused friends, we could return the acreage to beautiful rolling fields of tall grasses, not just weeds and rocks that have taken over every inch.
Sold, Planning, Meetings.
The ranch is ours. We start trying to come up with names for the ranch, learning all we can about what we do next. We took a trip to Bozeman to see where my grandparents lived while my grandfather was stationed out in Montana for the military. We eat amazing food, wander around Main Street, and go into meetings with different people. I couldn’t even tell you what we were in those meetings for. I was just sitting there bored for the most part. Attempting to save me from boredom, Momma taught me even more about community and how everyone knows each other; they’ve been building, constructing, or working together for years. She taught me about what to look for in reviews, who to trust, and why you should always get a second opinion. She is the smartest person I know and this trip was the best for us to be together and get a break from life in Park City.
There and Back
I ended up in the middle for the first stretch of the ride because “as the oldest you must always put your siblings first”. Thanks Mom. We had tried to convince my parents we should fly to our destination, but Mom wanted to see the country hills and Dad was determined to give road tripping another attempt. We had downsized from our usual three rowed Tahoe, a staple for soccer games and long drives for the Chait family, to a two row SUV. Dad was worried the old Tahoe would break down halfway to Tennessee, but as a passenger I was willing to take the risk. Two eight hour days crammed into the backseat with Ella, my sister who’s sass and snapchat addiction was unmatched, and Eli, my brother, who’s menace behavior hid beneath his sweet smile. Nobody listens. So I sat squished in the middle, head bobbing as I balanced my two napping siblings, whose heads had caused my fingers to go numb, with the bright yellow puke bucket straddled between my thighs. We were off.
The first two hours of the trip nearly had me fooled. Gazing out the window I watched as we left Texas behind and headed across the swamps of Louisiana. The swamps were an eerie place; the surface of the water sparkled in the sun luring passerby in but beneath everything were gators and swamp critters waiting to pounce. But from the silence of the car, I could admire its beauty, I was safe from the chaos that hid below. Dad slammed the brakes of the car as we approached the first traffic jam, “Fucking Christ Jason”, Mom muttered. He scoffed at her returning the remark with one of the usual nasty comments. Here we go again. Ella woke up, and stretched her arms to the roof of the car, smacking me in the face on her way up. “Opps” she giggled. I glared at her and closed my eyes. Just ignore it.
The next morning we started the day on the highway to Mississippi. Every road sign that was passed with the word Mississippi on it gave rise to an intense competition between Eli and Ella. Who could spell it correctly and the fastest. “Missppi” Eli screamed in my ear. “No stupid that’s wrong,” Ella remarked. Mom told Ella to cut the attitude, but then Dad chose to chime in “well she’s right, he is wrong ”. Of course he would, it was Ella, she could do no wrong. More bitter words were exchanged in the front seat and after ten minutes of back and forth, the parents stopped speaking to each other. Silence is better than fighting.
We drove through the state of Georgia through hill after hill…after hill. “How much more minutes”, a classic sentence of little kids in the car used with the sole intention of irritating the driver, except my brother preferred his own spin, which lacked proper grammatical form. A part of me believes he was just trying to annoy Dad even more. Like poking a stick into a wasp nest, Eli can be a menace but he isn’t stupid. “Say it again and you lose the i-pad”, Dad replied. Eli didn’t speak again until we arrived in Tennessee.
The days that followed were over before we could blink. Three traumatic spider encounters in the bedrooms of the house, tears shed on the roller coaster, and a sprained ankle from hiking. Now it was time to head back.
We threw our bags into the car and squished into the empty space between them. No one spoke. What was at one point our relaxing escape, was now something we were escaping from. I tried to sleep for most of the ride back, hoping I could fall into a dream where I was frolicking in an oasis of serenity. That only lasted an hour. I woke up to twenty-seven snap chat alerts from Ella who sat to my right, every picture a uniquely unflattering angle of me in my most vulnerable state. Three of them had been posted to her story. After that I could no longer fall asleep.
Moving back through Mississippi, Eli had lost all self control. He tossed his bouncy ball at the ceiling over and over each time with a little less control. Ella had gone through every snapchat filter and left with no other options decided to join him in the backseat ball toss. I sunk deeper into the middle seat, trapped. Dad made a swift lane change and Ella lost control, launching the ball at my moms head. It was like time froze. The backseat went still and we all held our breaths. Brace for impact. Both parents began to scream and scold us; they’d cracked. Mom turned to look at the backseat, a tear rolled down her cheek, “why can’t you all just behave”.
The final stretch of our ride landed us smack in the middle of Houston during rush hour. Talk about going out with a bang. Two hours of road rage, swerving, holding the yellow puke bucket now no longer empty, and we were finally home. I dumped the bucket in the grass, and my sibling stretched their legs in the driveway, Mom had already gone inside to attend to the dog. As I helped Dad with the bags and trash cluttered on the floor of the rental car, he groaned in exasperation. “Next time we fly”. Biting my tongue I walked away, I felt heavier than before worn down; I had no sympathy left. Nobody listens.
This is…Fulano
When pushed down it reveals a “pito”, wooden base with a red tip. A child’s toy if you will that is meant to bring laughter.
Inside of four cement walls and a metal roof are hands so tiny he can barely hold the ax, he needs to use two hands. Mama growls at him “Ve por un pedazo del árbol.” Running out the door, going through the street he spots the most perfect tree he’s ever seen. “Ese” he tells himself. With bark so dark and rough, rays always shining on its leaves, and a soft breeze that swayed, left and right. Three mighty swings and a piece of the tree comes off big enough to make into a llavero. Dragging the wood, beads of sweat running down his face, he finally reaches his family’s shop.
A big thump rings from the table as mom places the wood down ready to start. Her moves, so slick and smooth, powerful yet soft, a machete makes its way around the wood and bark. Slimmer each time, only a small cylinder left. “Ya casi está listo” she says. A few carves later, what’s left is a base ready to be painted. Music in the background reminding mom of her youth. The merengue, cumbia, and salsa. As if time could stop, a cup of water with brushes comes out and a paint set so old. Brush stroke after brush stroke, the mountains of El Salvador come alive. “Esta perfecto” she exhales.
After it all, they realize this is the process to create joy and laughter. It begins so small.
Seized from his vast, tranquil, lush, and colorful home. Ripped from his connection to mother nature just to be slashed and remolded. Now on the cold table, the giant female hovers above his natural state with a large razor-edged object, coming down at him from all angles. Losing parts of him and changing his smooth greenish-brown bark into a rainbow of colors that are old and unnatural. The unknown loud sounds coming from all around and her hot breath all over him, is this hell?
No control nor authority. Now with his learned helplessness mindset, the giant paints a smile and places him on the shelf to await his fate.
After it all, he realizes happiness and joy is a selfish concept.
The Roots that Bind Us
Bushels of dead plants blur past the speeding car window. Dead jojobas face down to the earth, begging for a taste of water after the summer drought. Resting near the jojobas, cacti of all sizes swarm abandoned boulders while chollas spring from the ground and drape over while hiding some cottontails. Trees of all assortments – yet all leafless – come to visibility as the truck passes them. Mesquites and Palo Verdes stretch out onto the road that leads to the Mexican border, waving “Goodbye! Safe Travels!” but inside that brown Chevrolet truck, silence fills the air.
No music plays, no one speaks to one another, and no air can refresh the scorching heat of the Arizona desert. Gazing out to the window, I inspect the saguaros. They hold out their arms to embrace the heavens as if in some prayer—perhaps asking for permission to caress their fellow saguaros yet ultimately facing the consequences of their bodies.
In my hands, wax crayons crumble down onto the long-forgotten card that spells out “Hope you feel better Nana!” A girl holding her Nana’s hand is depicted in the card. Blue borders and red corners frame the card in an attempt to mimic store-bought greeting cards. Will she forgive me for being distant this summer? Yet, the card remains unfinished, as I tightly grip my crayon in contemplation.
The car approaches the Mexican-American border, and clicks of seatbelts resonate through the car as everyone hurriedly buckles up. After a few greetings and head nods with the border patrol, the car passes through to the maze-like streets of Nogales, Sonora.
People fill the streets selling assortments of treats and souvenirs. Sunburnt men roam the street, pouring soapy water over car windows and wiping them with rags in hopes of getting some extra change for their families. In the distance, women walk with babies hanging from their backs while others carry displays full of shimmering bracelets. They walk near the car, sweat dripping down their foreheads, with their children holding out the bracelets. Their pained smiles wash sadness over me.
Pity, anger, and indignant sympathy. I was born in a different country, sharing the same blood as them, but a wall is the only thing that sets us apart. We are the same, but they suffer for that singular difference. I feel like a stranger.
The vibrant sunset covers the sky with hues of yellow, orange, pink, and purple. Yet, the car remains silent. From a distance, the landscape becomes a murky gray until navy blue coats the starry sky. The Arizona desert was left behind, with mountains now beaming from the ground, rising high into the sky. Did we have to leave this late? Why not tomorrow?
There is no end to this road.
Lights emerge from behind a large mountain and a city comes into view. The windows roll down, granting the hot air permission to enter and blow my overgrown bangs from side to side.
Trees, grass, water. Foreign, yet home– at least for my parents. Here, I am supposed to be my other half. A second identity—one that I have neglected and yet, one that I must embrace. My roots intertwine, connecting those that run deeper and bring both sides together. But is this my home?
Crackle. Wind. Burn. Bustling local businesses serve crowds of laughing people. The crowds yell in excitement and swing their arms in the air, perhaps intoxicated with glee or the alcohol they had consumed. Smoke fills the streets with the sweet smell of carne asada. Salivating on cue like a dog, I stick out my head, pouting, and begging my father with my eyes. He shakes his head. “Wait a bit more,” his look says. I sigh and with yearning, watch the vendors yell “¡Comenle, comenle! ¡Tan ricos que están estos tacos!” to passersby cars. After a few turns on streets with condiment-sounding names, a large, dimly lit building takes over the view. Large. Blue. Gated.
Something is wrong. Ambulances periodically arrive as paramedics hurriedly unload patients. We step out of the overcrowded car and into a pool of humid air. My father, with downturned eyebrows, his eyes glistening under the light, steps out last. I stare at him, frozen in my tracks, and watch him rush to see his nine other siblings who wait outside of the building anxiously. Nervously, I hold onto my mother.
My family remains in their own little bubble that oozes stress. They pace and wait for surgery results regarding my Nana. She is the embodiment of kindness, of warmth, of wisdom. She is one of my deepest roots. She is our everything. But why are they so scared?
I perch myself on a dry fountain, pick at the oxidized paint chippings, and wonder where we will stay for the rest of this unforetold night. Car seats might become our beds for the night, I think. The rough cement pricks on my legs, cousins scratch their itchy lice-infested heads, and bugs dance around the dim, flickering light that illuminates the dark depths of the night.
I stare, confused at the trees that swayed with the little bit of wind there was, and wonder, how long will I be away from home?