I live in the city, but nowhere near the street, of my youth. People move away to come here, so I am not sure where I’m supposed to go, and I turn corners into my past that remind me how far I’ve gone and how near I still am to it all.
Friends from the past pop up, in banks and market aisles; like cracker and jack-in-the-box trinkets left over from our childhoods – relationships so old they feel raw again.
“It’s so good to see you,” they’ll say. And the canons of questions ensue. “Same old,” I’ll respond, because that is the direction we are heading. The usual. “Engaged yet?” they’ll ask. “You look great,” we’ll both acquiesce.
We have soft conversations that feel like cutting at meat with spoons. And though there are no gray hairs on our heads quite yet, our new lives are tacked up over our old streets and we chat as if we’ve already lost our teeth. There are post-its and grocery lists over memory.
“How are your parents?” is always a question that begs to not be answered. “Same old,” is the answer, because that is the direction they are heading in as well.
My family is still all here, save my youngest sister, but we are spread out from the seedling of our start. Our branches and roots grew outward – this being the way of family trees.
I haven’t gone far. But it feels far from where I started.
There was a one mile radius between my childhood home, my grammar school and my high school; an LP of learning and family on a continual loop. If you knew my dad, this would prove a better analogy. He has a room of records now; he’s been collecting forever. Sometimes when I’d come home from school, I’d be greeted by music and a chicken-scratch note resting against a speaker. It’d read: “Now playing Ray Charles, or “You’re listening to The Jack Benny program.”
“I found this one for a quarter,” he informs me now, beckoning me into his makeshift studio to play me his newest find. We’ll sit and listen to Ray twist and shake his vocals, to Como croon, or to Benny perform. “You have to use your imagination,” he tells me.
He’s got that warm milk personality. He makes me feel like I grew up in small town. But then I’ll hop on Sunset and drive back to my new home on the other side of the city and I’m greeted by angry drivers and blinking billboards. On my side, people feel more like burnt coffee. We don’t listen to music together, but we honk horns, and slam brakes.
My parents sold our house, but they still live in the same neighborhood. And I drive to see them almost every Sunday. We have morning coffee, but I never drive down my old street – not intentionally, not with resentment or misplaced anger. I just find no real need to go there.
The corner market we always shopped at is no longer around. We’d buy meats and cheeses, the trappings of dinner, but never juice boxes or Lunchables – those weren’t a part of my childhood. I’d have eggplant-parmesan leftovers for lunch. I think that did some damage. I hate eggplant.
It was the market where I stole for the first time, reached my hand in the tub by the register and pulled out a piece of Bazooka bubble gum and stuffed it into my pink school uniform jumper. It cost 3 cents. It was a terrific rush. Until my mom made me return it. I never stole again.
I remember my old neighbor who was trapped under a heavy dresser after the ‘94 Northridge earthquake. The only thing keeping her alive was a photo of her dead husband that flew across the room and wedged itself between her body and the drawers. I don’t know who lives there now. I’m not sure I really care.
The people all around me speak in a dialect, in a sound, that makes the wind go to sleep. This isn’t the hometown I remember. And I don’t think it’s because I’m on the other side of the city.
I saw a friend outside a show the other night. Inside I only saw the backs of heads, browns, blondes, a solitary redhead – colors of cranium obscuring my view, so I watched the show in shadows on the ceiling. Every time a camera flashed, I’d witness the shape of the instruments, the outline of the lead singer. Outside I saw my friend in full flesh. We chatted. It was pleasant. The usual. Same old.
A shadow in the city of my youth.
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