Growing up in construction

Life before my father's departure is a hazy memory. Memories of my early years of comfort come in spurts of specific scenes. But I guess all memories are like pictures, moments in time that define a sentiment, feeling, and/or a turning point in one's life. When I had it all, all the snacks I wanted, all the room to play in my house, all the space in my pool to swim around, I spent lots of time playing in the sand dunes just beyond my quaint neighborhood. My family had moved into the community of The Moors during the pre-construction phase. We must have been one of the first families to move in. I played in the sand dunes with my neighborhood friends, girls who looked like me and had the same families as me. They spoke Spanish to their parents too and ate the same foods mine ate. They also had Spanish names like mine-Lina, Maria, Carolina, Teresita, Marisol, and Mildred. Their parents were also Colombian.

Spending time in the sand dunes was like having our own personal desert complete with endless hills far beyond our eyes could see. As my friends and I played in the sand every weekday afternoon, I became hypotized by the twilight hues cast as the sun set behind the hills. It didn't matter what I was in the middle of doing-running up and down the hills chasing my friends or frolicking in the sand-I couldn't help but stop and stare in the sun's direction, enraptured by an instant sense of peace and tranquility which engulfed me precisely at the moment and forced me into momentary stillness.

Back then, there wasn't much to worry about, except making sure my sister Alejandra and I got home by our weekday curfew. When we weren't playing in the sandhills, we were in one of two houses, Felix's or Miguel's. Felix and Miguel were my father's friends and their families resembled ours in many ways. Each lived in houses which looked like mine, with several rooms and ornate decorations. Each family consisted of at least five members and each had children close in age to that of my siblings. The wives, both named Selena, reminded me of my mother, eternally poised and ready to be in public with their brightly colored dresses and heels and fiery red or pink lipstick.

I remember my friends' mothers well but I remember more about Miguel's Selena than the other Selena. It seems fitting I would write about Selena as "Miguel's" since this is the way she presented herself to the world. She was what people call a wallflower. When I think about her, I think about her flawless smile and dainty posing more than her talking. She wasn't a big talker and she didn't have a big voice. Instead it had the high pitch of a woman many years younger than she was and never wavered from its usual low volume. My mother told me once that when Miguel married Selena, she was a young girl with a chubby frame yet had the same angelic face as always. Selena's face inspired peace with her round eyes, translucent skin, and defined cheekbones. She wore soft pastel colored makeup, exuberating the innocence of a young girl in her middle age. After she and Miguel married and had their children, Selena took up aerobics religiously and gained the figure she probably always wanted but never had.

By my sixth birthday, we had moved out the Moors and said goodbye to the two families which resembled ours in so many ways. Several years had passed when something triggered the memory of these two families. I casually asked my mother what she knew about them. "I know Felix and his family moved to Colombia but as far as Miguel..." My mother went into details about how Selena had eventually decided she wanted to shake up her humdrum life and take up English classes and ended up falling in love with her English teacher, an American man twenty years her senior. Eventually she fleed with the man and her and Miguel's four children. Miguel, in his newfound loneliness and depression, packed his bags and left to Colombia. Thus ensued a battle for visitation of the children between Miguel and Selena which included a time when Miguel convinced his oldest son to abduct his youngest sister, Mildred, who was a toddler at the time, and take her to Colombia without Selena's consent.

Several years after my mother had given me the update, my sister and I reunited with one of Selena's daughters and Ale's faithful childhood playmate, Teresita. She possessed the same beauty she had as a child, even as a young woman. She took after her mother. But as she unfolded the details of her family's post-separation life which included a reclusive stepfather and runaway older sister, she seemed sad and tired. I felt sorry for her. Looking into her eyes, I could no longer see the innocence and laughter we all once possessed on those endless afternoons of rolling around in the sand hills of the construction lots behind our Moors homes.

*Names has been changed to protect the anonymity of the persons mentioned.