Sunday, May 2, 2010

life map

I had a life plan:

I was going to be a physical therapist.
Heal anterior cruciate ligaments and rotator cuffs.
Buy a house.
Marry a guy named Michael or Pedro or Hakim.
A Jacaranda tree would have been nice.

I don't know when or where my plan changed.

I think it was the afternoon I read Araby.
Maybe my Dr. Martens are to blame.
Or my bob with a Madonna bow.

Perhaps it was the Los Angeles river  that flows on a concrete channel.
The Oxnard strawberry fields I had left behind.
The long bus ride from Seal Beach to ugly Wilmington with the smell of bleach on my hands.
My walkman playing How Soon Is Now? over and over.

Was it the encounter I had with the man from Pakistan?
His letters from Karachi.
The unheard prayers to Allah in the City of Angeles.
The candles to the Lady of Guadalupe at Plaza Olvera.

Was it the downtown streets of a L.A?
The midnight heroin boys.
The homies from East Los dancing cumbia with the dead.
The taco stand on Broadway and 7th selling tacos de lengua perdida.


The long wait for the Greyhound bus to take me home. 


 I took a photograph of one of the few childhood photographs i have of my siblings and self. The shortest girl is Trying (circa 1967).

My husband on his first day of kindergarden. I met him in April, 2001. I married him in 2006.



My father.

My husband wearing his German Boy outfit.
Maria, my grandmother.



6 comments:

  1. No se en que momento habra cambiado el curso de tu vida.

    Pero agradezco que haya tomado hacia donde yo iba pasando.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing your photos and your plans too. It´s nice to think we can plan ahead, it´s nicer to know that we can change them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Trying:
    Me encantó tu post lleno de nostalgia...
    La Vida, el Destino o como quieras llamarlo, suele tomar el mando y llevarnos por lugares insospechados, cruzar nuestros caminos con otras personas y hacerlo de maneras que jamás imaginamos...y en un instante, ¡tenemos que cambiar de planes!
    Hermosas fotos!

    Un beso

    ReplyDelete
  4. Trying,
    dicen que el mapa no es el territorio, dentro de la linea trazada ocurren tantas cosas y se llena de tantos paisajes,
    tu territorio construido, tiene bellos paisajes, como tus fotos :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Voy a hablarte en español. El inglés es una cuesta arriba en estos días de espinos.

    Cuida de tu mapa y sigue trazando sus derivas. En cada una ganas algo, pierdes algo, te roban algo, prestas algo... En cada una está la razón.

    Me gusta la foto de María, tu abuela.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Trying:

    Thanks for the memories, these nostalgic photos and sensitive.
    To our regret or for our benefit, plans for our lives change. Unexpectedly, or without desire.
    For something you are a missionary of milk chocolate one day.... yesterday a plums, flowers of roses or dream of summer...
    You describe yourself. (One day you said it to me)
    Grettings.
    Daniel.

    ReplyDelete