There was a rug. I think it was an oval rug. An ugly thing, rag-tied and woven into a spiral of washed-out '80s pastels. There was nothing significant about that rug. I don't even know if this rug is a figment of my memory or the vestiges of a one-off dream. Perhaps there was and wasn't a rug. Yet, this rug still metaphorically covers the floor as if concealing a locked away treasure. I can't really say.
There was a window. The sun casted her warmth into my room, directly onto the rug that was both there and not. But the windows was certainly there. A whole world beyond a pane of crystalline glass. I remember peeking out into the world and onto...a street? A cul-de-sac? It's funny what one does and doesn't remember. But I remember there was waiting.
There was waiting. I remember I peaked through that window and waited and waited and waited. Why? Why would a little girl need to wait by a window? What logic could surmise from the mind of a toddler? What reason could behold from the fickleness of a dreamer? I haven't figured it out. Yet, the memory lingers with a thin-veiled sense of forlorn.
There was emotion. But how could a girl feel so forlorn? It wasn't explicitly out of sadness. It wasn't entirely from loneliness. Maybe there was anticipation or a desire for more. Curiosity? Wanting? I don't know. How much truth lies in an ancient memory and dream?
There was a rug. I can be certain of that. This certainty still doesn't define memory from reality or longing from a dream. Until then, the rug both is and isn't, was and wasn't, and will and won't be. I could ask about the existence of this rug, but I don't think I will. I don't need to unravel the properties of something that feels so real to me.
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I remember my idea of playing was doing headstands. I would balance myself with my back precariously propped against my bedroom bureauâits worn square knobs pressed against my bony ribs and spine. I knew very well that teetering too far in any direction would result in bruises. But I still did it all the time. I enjoyed the view, I got to see my world flipped upside.
A single small matchbox car was the object of another favorite pass-time for me. The world was my race track. The tweed-like sofa cushions became the sand to my âworld-famousâ land races. From the grasslands of the Serengeti carpets to the perilously sleek ice tracks of the Alaskan refrigerator-tundra. Every surface a track. Every object an obstacle My imagination was bound to no earthly limits.
Sometimes, playing meant doing nothing at all. Iâd let little mind whir away with its three-year-old sensibilities and contemplation. In these idle moments, my hands wandered on their on a quest to seek. They never sought after anything in particular. It was as if they instinctually knew what they were after. I distinctly remember when my hands found what they sought: all of my attention on a little hangnail on my right thumb.
I felt tasked with the need to remove it, as if it had no business being there. I used the tip of my fingers, but it would never catch. I tried scratching it downward, as if to unravel myself of this tiny inconvenience. I tried pitching, pulling, and even trying to catch it with the tip of my fingernails, but that tiny loose skin wouldnât budge. Eventually, my teeth took over and finally found purchase on the torn skin. With tooth and nail, I had finally managed to pull away at this hangnail. But it still wasnât entirely gone. The loose skin had been shortened in length, but it was not gone. So I continued working at it with teeth and nails until a layer of skin around the perimeter of my nail exposed tender flesh.
I donât remember pain. I didnât cry or run to mi mamĂĄ with the pink tissue that I had exposed. Instead, I was frozen in place observing this new skin-deep secret that I had unveiled. I do remember eventually clutching my finger to my chest, as if to bury it from no oneâs line of vision. I knew mi mamĂĄ would inevitably peak her head in to check on me. The urge to concoct a story was there. This urge started to build up from shame. A shame for what I did to myself. It bubbled over and I ran to mi mamĂĄ crying to show her what happened. Whether my tears were in Spanish or English, I will never know, but I showed her my raw tissue. And with my sobs, I told her that I had hurt myself. With her gentle hands, she wrapped my shame away with a bandaid. I donât remember if she wiped my tears away. I donât know whether she knew that I was what happened to my finger.
I donât think Iâll ever tell her. She doesnât need to carry my burdens; her shoulders are already scarred with her own weight that she carries.
I still donât remember much before the age of five. But this. This is the one memory that was preserved. Not memories of love, comfort, safety, or emotional nourishment. I am left with a memory of my own slow dance with self-destruction. I may not peel the flesh off my fingers anymore, but my hands still wander cravingly in search for something. Anything to scratch or dig. Itâs left my cheeks riddled with faded icebox scars. My shoulders are semi-healed over with bulging scars. But unhealed wounds still remain from the constant digging and scratching of my nails. I flirt with pain, but it is never a bold attempt to embrace it. I donât do it for pain. I donât know why I do it at all. But I continue to tear at my skin until tiny droplets of blood begin to well along with my stifled tears.
Playing at one point became writing my name over and over again. It was almost as if it were a desperate attempt at establishing my identity. Iâm write my name with an awkwardly grasped crayon in my right hand. My hand uncontrollably scrawling away at the paper with the lack of finesse of a three-year-old. My glyph-like letters crudely spelled out my name: DEBBIE. Iâd eventually grow to hate that nickname. It turned into an abandoned name for an abandoned childhood. âDebâ would become the only protective shield I allowed myself to wear from there on out.
Do you remember when you were a little bean? You probably don't, but your mamis do! You were a little baby bean in Mommy's belly. Mommy and Mami were so excited and they held onto you like their dearest little secret with all ten of their fingers and smiled because they knew they would soon have someone new to love.
I remember the first day when your mamis told me that I would be a tĂa and that a little baby bean was growing. Soon, we all knew, because this little baby bean was starting to grow ten little fingers and ten little toes. So your mamis shared their little secret with the whole wide world! And the whole wide world knew that a little baby bean would sprout into a little baby boy and be welcomed into the whole wide world with so much love and joy from his mamis, abuelitos, tĂas, and tĂos. And they all smiled because they knew how much they are going to love you.
I remember the day when you, my little nephew bean, sprouted. I couldn't wait to meet you! Your mamis told me all about your ten perfect tiny fingers and ten perfect tiny toes. They told me how you were already smiling, because you knew how much you are loved.
I remember the first day I met you, little sprout. You were just as perfect as your mamis told me you would be. Ten perfect tiny fingers and ten perfect tiny toes. You always had a smile on your face because you knew you are loved.
I sang you lullabies about blackbirds and walruses. Sweet whispered songs about yellow submarines and octopus gardens. I carried you around the colorful dreams of creators and imaginators. We baked elaborate patty cakes with all ten of our fingers. Then we pondered about little diamonds in the sky. And I smiled at you because I knew I loved and will always love you.
Happy birthday, little sprout. Your tĂa Bibi loves you very much.
Here la historia begins. My thoughts became tangible and solidified. My sentences brincando between dos mundos. I want leche. I want a muñeca. ¥Quiero candy! Dos padres very confundidos by my melange of Spanglish. They tried to make sentido of my words. There was no order to a lenguaje unconstrained by reglas. Mama y papa tried to teach me how to contar. So I counted to mis papas: one, dos, three, four, cinco, seis, seven.....
San Antonio.
ÂĄEn esta casa hablamos español! I learned to navigate the awkward Spanish words with the twist of my rigid tongue. Mi pobre boca felt thick with palabras and ideas that had no release. My fragmented Spanish no longer glittered the floor in broken shards. Instead, it was precariously pieced togetherâheld tightly with anglicized thoughts. I tried to make the palabras come out, but it only chipped away at something that was already broken. My parents would come to lament the choice I had made. In this house, I spoke English.
I clenched my hands around mis palabras like the flawless diamantes I chiseled from mi tierra sagrada. No puedo dejar que escuchen mi español. They wouldnât hear my Spanish. Pero los diamantes dug their resentment into my flesh with their sharp points. I held a precious hidden treasure in my palms that I feared would be ripped from my clutches by overzealous thieves. I wanted nothing more than to wash off the sangre that dripped from my pierced fingers. I wanted to thrash and screamâ ÂĄMira! ÂĄMira como brillan! ÂĄMira que preciosos y radiantes son! But when I finally spread my fingers out wide for the world to see, they only saw the blackest coal glistening with the redness of my fear. They snatched black diamonds and set my mundo ablaze. From the glowing embers, they branded my skin anew. The wetback.
San Antonio. Again.
Again. There were others like me, but were they like me? Were the manuals to their lives written in English or Âżescrito en español? Do they prefer flour tortillas or Âżprefieren tortillas de maiz? Did they have to climb up to the stage and prove to the world, that like, ÂĄNo, en serio! ÂĄTe lo juro! Soy Mexicana! ÂżO les arrancaban el micrĂłfono de las manos a pesar de gritar, âNo, I swear! Iâm American!â? I was no longer alone. We were alone together. Our existence and identities became a performance; a dance for no one that particularly cared. "Watch the amazing acrobatics! See how we jump between two worlds!" Uno que nos rechazĂł por haber nacido en el mundo equivocado and one that unwelcomed us for being born with a different language caged behind our teeth. They tried to mark us out in the open, but our skins held no more room for new scars. Instead, they abandon like the waste they deemed us. We were left ignored and unworthy of recognition. We became expendable. Unseemly. Incongruous. Nothing. Nada.
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