La Isla Del Encanto

Amazing how traveling back to Puerto Rico after not having been here for 35 years has spurred memories of place and who I was at that time as if it were yesterday. I had spent my younger years in Managua and San Salvador as well as New York and New Orleans but it’s Puerto Rico that feels like my coming of age story. This is where I started my period – where my body developed into a woman’s – where I had my first major crush – and where I learned that being nice isn’t necessarily rewarded in this life.

My mind is swarming with memories that vie for attention – events and people appear and shuffle as if someone had put them in Filemaker Pro or some other database that can be arranged and rearranged at whim:

Terrazzo floors – cold to on bare feet, clean and shiny.

My neighbor and friend who was over(s)mothered because of the divorce.Our neighbor, the divorcee, a cracker jack of a woman. She was my mom’s smoking buddy – the last friend I believe I ever saw her hang out and girl talk with.

The neighbors to the left– a house full of kids – a father who drove an olive green GTO – a muscle car that holds so much fascination for me still that I long to own one myself one day.

My youngest brother running away from home and turning up at Charity Hospital in New Orleans with an appendicitis gone bad – a colostomy – shriveling away until my father brought us all back to the States to get him and I walked in the hospital ward and almost sank to my knees when I saw how thin and pale he had become.Empty overgrown lots with enormous iguanas.

A baby chick from a street festival we were allowed to bring home and who my sister and I fed peanut butter, which subsequently locked its beak in place for two days until the peanut butter wore off.

The huge mango tree outside my bedroom window – foot long yellow orbs that caused horrific skin rashes on my face but yet I couldn’t stop eating them.

A concrete terrace overlooking a huge empty lot that was mowed constantly where my sister and I choreographed and danced to songs such as Eli’s Coming, Mony Mony, and other pop tunes while hanging out in our PJs.

The boy across the street I had a crush on, who wrote in my slam book, who invited me over and I went and while he was in his room, his father cornered me in the kitchen and stuck his hands down my pants. Not once, but on two occasions till I was scared to go over there.

Spanglish.

Yankee Go Home graffiti under the overpasses.KDK fans – my father’s cousin owned the company – we had them all over the house.

Extensive Barbie compounds built out of table covers and books and chairs and any other object that could function structurally.

Registering that I was different than my sister and mother who powdered their nose and wore the latest fashion, culottes or whatnot. I waited till 28 to become a girl, preferring instead to be androgynous.

HOT PANTS – my favorite pair were rust on one leg and navy blue on the other with a wide brass zipper. I wore a navy blue bodysuit with them that had puffy short Spanish sleeves. There is a picture of me standing in front of a hibiscus bush where my body looks 25 and my face looks a nine year old.

Catholic school taught in English and nuns with habits and rulers as weapons.My brother David showing up with his bride – his first marriage – she had acne and he wore high water pants.

A Thanksgiving where the cat we had captured and hidden in a box in the bedroom got loose and jumped on the turkey and my father upended the entire dining room table that we had worked so hard to prepare.

My brothers used to compliment how well I made the bed and get me to make theirs every morning. It wasn’t till I realized they were making fun of me that I quit doing it. I actually enjoyed making their beds. Falls under the heading what goes on?

My first cigarette – Pall Mall Golds – stolen from my mother’s pack on top of the refrigerator.