“even though we go hungry we are not impoverished of experiences.”
– Nellie Wong
I believe television creates a schizophrenic database of memories. Not long ago as I reminisced and thought about how I reconstruct the past, I decided television lets us live vicariously through sitcoms. I watched entirely too much television growing up. I also read obsessively when someone else had control of the remote. I explored new worlds that countered my reality, countered my father’s alcoholism, the long hours my mother worked, the helicopter flying overhead at night. We have imagined childhoods or ideas of what childhood should be. We see Radio Flyers, backyards, bicycles, heated homes, paved streets, and lawns. These images we internalize watching television. This pseudo-nostalgia, a feeling of longing for a past we never experienced, is an ailment we acquire as we age. We long for a romanticized past of what our realties may have never been. Some of us acknowledge the nostalgia, see it for what it is, a way to cope with our realities and our pasts attempting to avoid the pain.
Seventrees is the name of my barrio, just another Sal Si Puedes, get out if you can. It was the kind of place outsiders only came to visit if they knew someone. People are still resistant to drive through Seventrees because of its history. Seventrees was nestled on the border of the south side and the east side. In a space where I argue accumulated the intense energies and conflicts of San José. The east side was traditionally Xicano. The south side traditionally White. We in between were an array of shades of earth. A mix of the continents and histories of colonization all pushed into a neighborhood that neither side wanted to claim. The people of Seventrees were poor, like most people of color in San José. To continue to exist, to remain sane we learned to adapt in the most instinctive ways. The children of Seventrees were especially adept at this art. We played house in cardboard boxes and saved mattresses, tires, and bike parts from the garbage so that we could have trapezes, swings, and bike replacements.
I think back affectionately to my childhood but I realize that I’ve romanticized so much. In the phases of my life, I see the cycles. I find myself returning to Seventrees mentally, sometimes physically to walk the concrete I shared life with. The swings I shared cuts, scrapes and bruises with. The monkey bars I shared calluses with. I remember how elementary school was still safe. It was still okay to play with the little brothers and sisters of Sureños. In middle school you crossed the threshold of adolescence and for us it meant ignoring the neighbor you use to play and eat dirt with. It also meant danger. It meant making sure you weren’t ever caught walking alone with no way to defend yourself. I learned to carry a flashlight at night, the kind pigs carry. A blow from one of those in the right place and you had enough time to run, because most of the time you didn’t want to fight. Fighting always led to more fighting. Now, as a young woman I long to return to the innocence of adolescence. Return to when time still passed slowly, time like the summer.
I loved the summer. I close my eyes and can recall how my body felt when it was too hot to be inside at night. We would sit in front of our homes on patches of grass and fan ourselves with newspapers, dollar-store fans, and our hands while we listened to Tierra, El Chicano, Sly & the Family Stone, Al Green, Roberta Flack, and Rose Royce. Dreams of you and I go sailing by whenever your eyes meet mine . We’d swat at mosquitoes when they’d sing into our ears or sucked on our flesh. Streetlights provided us with just enough light to see each other’s sweat gleaming off our skin. Throughout the night quiet breezes would scatter the smell of smoke sessions happening behind bushes and around corners.
No one had lawn furniture. Seventrees Village was a townhouse community; streets didn’t go all the way through they were abruptly cut off by the park or alleys. The best way to get around was on foot or on bikes. The structures were beige with brown trim; the homes had two, three, and four bedrooms. The garages were in the back so the homes faced each other and were separated by sidewalk and patches of grass. Single-family townhouses with multiple family occupancies, Seventrees made you feel like you were never alone. We learned how to live with each other’s sounds and smells. Family fights, love making, cooking, birthday parties. There were hardly ever one home events; the whole block partook in the drama. I grew up hearing Mexican Spanish, Hindi, Vietnamese, Arabic and Black and Xicano English in addition to the Central American mix of Spanish in my home.
We sat on rooftops or at the park when we wanted to get away from the grown folks. There we could sneak in hand holding and innocent kisses but only for a little while because someone would always come looking for you. Recalling nights like these, before loveless sex, before laptops, before twenty page papers, I let out a sigh. I inhale deeply trying to hold on to the memories in each breath.
