Memoir

Last updated on April 21, 2010

Memoir. Memoir. Memoir…I have to write this memoir. It’s not that I can’t think of anything to write about that is making it troublesome. No, I’m not that dull. Sometimes life’s monotony presses against my mind, and threatens to collapse it into insanity–but no life hasn’t been too dull. Through the volition of others I’ve flown over the Caribbean Sea from one alien country to another. I’ve moved from one city to another, to this town. I’ve been to one of the main cities of the world, countless times, and just recently to and from the southern most tip of North America. I’ve collected a grand pastiche of memories from these places. So why can’t I write this memoir? Because when I summon this album in my mind, everything is in rough order, and short snippets.

If I begin to write about Somerset, the apartment complex I once lived in, I can’t hold on to a memory long enough to develop it. I fleetingly remember the buzzing of traffic as I darted from end to end in the Somerset pool. The smell of Somerset summers: indescribable. I recall the joy of seeing my mom carrying hot dogs toward me, as I hovered in my primary colored life vest; and the particular deliciousness of a post-swim hotdog, always with relish. Suddenly my joy turns into wonder. I’m in the pool bathroom. It’s tiny, dark, wet, and has two toilets. Why are there two toilets my cousins and I constantly questioned. I mean, who would pee when someone else was there? A husband and wife? A parent and their child? It just dawned on me that a couple of cousins didn’t mind.

I also spent my summers with cousins who weren’t really cousins. Those kids of family friends who become part of your family, while in return you are welcomed into theirs. There was Hector, the young one, whose cuteness was obscured by his annoying nature, and later by a broken tooth. And Anubi, Hector’s older, and actual cousin who was straight from Africa. I could tell him anything. Together, all three of us would “explore” the woods behind the Somerset playground. (Well, they aren’t so much woods, as a couple of trees that escaped being fenced off.) I’d expertly avoid limbs coming at my face, or fallen ones that threatened to trip me, yet I’d walk right through mysterious plants that may or may not have been poison ivy. I was proud of my agility, and bragged about my boldness. No, my bravado, because all the while my eyes would scan the ground in fear of encountering a snake. One day they encountered a photo of a girl. We created fantastic stories of rapists and murderers, all of them explaining the stray socks, shirts, and boxers that would appear beyond the fence.

Now that I think about it, none of the stories accounted for how the photo got there. I guess, we merely used the girl as a victim for our mystery, which, of course, remains unsolved.

These snippets are too plentiful though, so how do I choose? Do I select memories that shaped me? Perhaps my elementary school art class is what inclined me to love art. The room was leaden as if made of clay; the clay we molded into misshapen pots. Art books of a little blonde girl, and her perfect winter, made to inspire, stared back from the black boards edge. Sunflowers sprung to life from Van Gogh’s paintings, and sulked by the sink. A large loom with blue yarn, which was condemned to a corner, oversaw it all. At that age, age 7, I compared it to a golden harp. So when the art teacher warned day after day, “Do not touch the loom,” I wanted nothing more than to pluck its strings. I remember the teacher well. Her scarfs, her short black, and white splotched hair, even her Jewish nose. She seemed eccentric, perfect for art.

Yeah, that class might have sparked my interest for visual composition, or maybe it is simply genetic.

In kindergarten and early elementary school I felt like everyone saw me as…lumpy. Of course, I wasn’t actually lumpy, and I knew that. The lumpiness came from being different. I came here from Dominican Republic when I was four, not knowing any English. I’m not tan, like most Hispanics, so instead of thinking of my classmates as “white,” in my mind they were like paper. I felt as if, though they didn’t know it, my classmates were considered better than me by others. It was their country, and I was merely dropped in it. The way my parents talked about Americans intensified this, “Lauren, eat before school. Eat cereal. That’s what Americans do.” Oh, it sickened me the way my mom and dad put them on a pedestal high above our heads. For the record my parents are very proud, and very fond of their country. Sometimes they just acted like being an American was the current trend, and we should all be part of it. “Didn’t they realize that the people in this country also stuck frozen dinners in the microwave instead of cooking a warm meal,” I thought, “and out of laziness!” To me that was the foolproof argument against Americans.

“Never a blond blue-eyed guy,” I assured my mom when I moved to Milford (the most paper-white place I’ve lived in yet), “and especially not from here.” “But you are going to end up with a blond, blue-eyed American–and he’ll definitely be from here,” my mom would laugh. “Nuh uh,” I retorted, “If I do end up with an American, he won’t be so damn stereotypical!” Though I denied it, I knew she would end up being right. When my mom mentions someone they call, something, it happens…

Lately I’ve been eating frozen dinners, and feeling like though some Americans disagree, they are just people, like me, and everyone else. And as long as he keeps being amazing, I’ll continue letting this blue-eyed blond hold my hand.

Being an immigrant has shaped me; made me ambitious. I want to be successful, and prove myself to Americans who doubt my race. But why am I shy? Is it because of the language barrier I experienced when I was younger? Or am I naturally an ambitious introvert? I can’t recollect enough memorial evidence to be sure. So what has shaped me is only theoretical–just like my memories are. Because dwelling so close, my dreams, and imagination, have seeped into my album of memories…

I was in New York visiting my cousin Ines. I vaguely remember her telling me that she had a “really cool room” to show me–or perhaps my mind just invented that. The room was similar to an insane asylum. White-walls, and padding, only the padding was really a foam bed…or two. There were coloring books and water colors waiting for us. We had a riot bouncing up and down on the padding. It became a fun house. But I can’t tell if I just dreamed up all that merriment because we bounced too high for a foam bed…or two. And if I think about that room long enough a gamut of colors begin to swirl about.

My next memory is just as questionable, and like the first is a little different every time I convoke it. I was at Somerset. I may or may not have been alone. I think I was tip toeing, trying to be quiet as I reached the strange place. “I’ve never explored here before,” I thought. With both hands, I spread aside the mass of foliage before me to reveal a small lake. Golden cattails and purple flowers bordered the water. Lily pads were strewn about. The scene was blurred, as if by hovering dandelion seeds. Or maybe that is just the blur of memories that are not clear cut. I don’t remember what happened next, though I can easily place faeries among the cattails, so maybe that is simply the blur of imagination.

Anything I’ve recalled here means nothing. I feel like a traitor writing about Somerset, but not Circle Rd, or New York, but not Boston. I feel like this is incomplete if I mention my cousins, but not my friends, and what has shaped me, or I possibly imagined, but not what I yearn for, and know to be true. Like sitting on the railing of the Brazilian store, munching on chocolate and sipping on glorious mango juice. Laughing with Laura about Jon, walking down the street with Meaghan on our way to the frog pond, hearing Kenny’s tortured ghost stories…When it comes to my memories I may not always know what’s real, or what happened when, but one thing is definite: I yearn for everyone I’ve ever known, and everywhere I’ve ever been.