And then. . .

When I was a kid, and my grandma took me shopping downtown, I used to hide in the rounders filled with clothes Now , I know they're called rounders. Then they were just a giant circle of multi-colored fabrics I could sit in the center in and feel safe. It was always cooler in that shaded center. Less fluorescent. Less department store noise. When I looked up it's center and saw the tunnel of light, I had view of the outside, but inside I was safe. What is that? As children we liked to be surrounded by over stuffed pillows or rainbow quilted forts. I wonder if it's reminiscent of the last womb we felt safe in. Today, when I got home from work, I sat on the floor outside my husband's closet saying hi to our dogs and telling him about my day while he sat at his desk. Behind me was a pile of dirty clothes, and although I knew they held his musky scent from the gym, I flopped back into the t-shirts and track shorts, jeans and colorful socks, and looked up into the row of h...

For the past month, my sister and I have been cleaning out a dusty storage unit my mother had filled with nothing and everything. Painstakingly, we have gotten up early, gone to the unit, and dug through boxes of my mother's life. We've found old photos, jewelry, socks, clothes, out-dated workout equipment, broken glass, and layers upon layers of El Paso desert dust that settled upon things we'd forgotten about. We'd get there clad in workout gear with white rubber gloves and sunscreen ready. I've suffered two sunburns on my back and shoulders, 20 sneezes, one stubbed toe, many sore muscles, and countless memories as we reminisced with the things we found. I took pictures of my favorite navy blue vans with Nirvana lyrics scribbled on the side from high school. I took home a cast iron pan, shish kabob skewers, and a marble cutting board. We donated countless things and threw away many others. Last Saturday, we finally finished. Several family members showed up an...

If scars tell the stories of our lives, my grandma’s body, fair skin loosened by age, held a map of lines disclosing the life my Ita lived. These are their stories. I’ve pieced them together and filled in the rest. Forehead In a fight before I was born, she ended up with a scar at the peak of her forehead, where a widow’s peak would have been. The fight, I imagine from the stories I’ve been told, takes place in the living room. She yells about where he’s been, how much he’s been drinking. He, Gil, tries to walk away from her and she swings.  He ducks, “Mamita, todo esta bien,” he says, but he still wraps his arms around her and holds her to him like he will never let go, and in a way he never did. She struggles trying to pry her arms away from her side. She grunts and yells, "Dejamé carbon,” but he keeps his arms where they are. He knows if he lets go her left hand will come out swinging and instead throws his head forward.   Smack . The sound of two stu...

The last few weeks I've been thinking a lot about getting older. This year for some reason I forgot I had a birthday. My mind just skipped over it; kind of like forgetting the milk when you go to the grocery store. But, the last couple weeks several things have happened which have reminded me that I am in fact getting older, and although there is nothing I can do about it, it's been naner- naner haw hawing in my face. (I think age is a bitchy girl who was once pretty and turned into an old hag and wants to make the rest of us miserable.) What's been bogging you down you ask? Well, last week I found a friend from high school passed away. I had not spoken to Javier in a while, but there was a moment my senior year in high school where he and I were part of a happy foursome--with Vanessa and Collete--and we were inseparable. He passed away suddenly, and Facebook and texts were flying trying to figure out what happened. I think many people thought it was just gossip, "O...

Everyone has their place, their watering hole, their very own Cheers where they feel safe and it's filled with familiar faces. One of my favorite places is downtown favorite The Tap. It's funny, because I basically inherited the place. I went there as a child with my grandma, Ita and spent a lot of time going back and forth between the jukebox and peanut machines perched on the bar. It was my favorite bar because of the Budweiser sign that had the Clydesdale horses behind the bar. (Now, it's above the new jukebox.) My grandma worked there for many years before I was born, so when we went to watch the fight, hang out, whatever, she always knew lots of people. As an adult I only know a few people: Jasmine the waitress who greets me and the people I'm with every time with a familiar smile. Veronica, who I call Vaca who's like an Aunt to me. She became a part of the family long before I was born. A friend of my grandma's who became a friend to my mom and uncle. ...

The other day a friend and previous classmate asked, "Do you miss the program?" She was referring to the time we spent at UTEP completing our MFA in the Creative Writing department. In May it will be a year that we graduated. Last year at this time I was knee deep in trying to finish my thesis under a pile of student papers I needed to grade, memories coming to life on the page, tears, half a sandwhich, and coffee. Did I miss that? Hell no! But there were things I did miss. After being in the work force for five years prior to entering the program I enjoyed the free time, the odd scheduling, just sitting down with a cup of coffee and talking about books. I enjoyed the slow in pace after being rev'ed into red for so long. Now, I am not rev'ed, I still have free time, but now there is the worry of "What's next?" In the program I was surrounded by like minds, we talked about books and writing, we stayed up into the wee hours of the night giggling over h...

Today I subbed for P.E. at a local high school and I noticed something as I watched the boys playing basketball. I noticed that our adult lives are simply a continuation of high school. Five boys played on the court. Two tried to dribble and finally ended up kicking the ball back and forth on the other end of the court. One sat in an aluminum chairs off to the side and played with his phone. Later, when another class joined mine, girls sat on the sidelines and text while giggling. A hipster kid sat on the sidelines with the world tuned out as giant black headphones hugged his head. Everyone had their place, and I realized that as we get older we still have our place, some of us just become more comfortable in them while others spend their life trying to outgrow the shadow of who they were. Sometimes when it comes down to it, we are just the mean girl, nerdy guy, jock, douche, brown noser, stoner. Look around at all your friends, what group would you be? What about your coworkers? Onc...