Flicks from the Past

Most of you know that I am in Puerto Rico taking care of my mom. Just doing a little to help out my sisters that have been taking care of her full time. It really isn't a burden because Mami, is real sweet. We worked on mending bridges a long time ago and have been close ever since. One of the nicest parts of it, is hearing her stories about our family and how things were in the past. How she would walk La Finca or the place where she grew up in. She'll tell how her brothers Victor and Angel would give her a special look just after lunch and they would all run off somewhere in la finca to play. They would race up to the top of a hill right in front of where all our houses are now. Other times they would go to "la piedra en la laja, and swim in the river and soil their clothes. Sometimes getting a spanking for spending too many hours out in the wild. She tells me of La Vega Honda, another area, like a meadow between two hills, in the finca which she enjoyed walking. Isn't that something to know a property or piece of land so well that each corner has a name. Maybe we can walk it and find where each place is at.

Its odd because I have been coming to this finca in el Barrio Lomas en Naranjito for so long, but we have mostly been to the same place every time, only where the old house had been. La finca itself was divided into 10 sections and given as inheritance to my mom's nine siblings and herself. Much of that has been sold to third parties.

In all the time the property was intact, I can only remember once climbing the hill with Mami. It was sometime way back in the sixties when Doris and I got those atrocious permanents. Thank God not that permanent!! I remember standing near a very huge mango tree up on that hill. Sweaty from the climb and a little scratched from the grasses but other than that very satisfied to be able to overlook the area. We were pampered kids then and didn't realize then that Mami was sharing one of her favorite life experiences with us.

Isn't that how life is? We stumble around bumping into each other and many times not realizing that some one else is communicating what they love to us. Actually what love is to them. I think she treasured that place because of the embodiment of experiences there. That is why we love our land. Whether here or somewhere else. The land itself represents the experiences we have had there as well as the shared experiences of others.

Some of my uncles and aunts have houses on top of the hill where the old house used to stand and maybe some day I will, too. I don't know. I am so torn. Torn between where I live right now, and what I have here. In a way, I am spoiled, too. Spoiled by the comfort of the status quo. We'll see. All I know I want to live a life of significance. Maybe it isn't time just yet to make that move. In the meantime, I will seize the day, and sometime this trip, climb that hill. Hopefully before I go back to Orlando, and give mom a report about the sights up on her special hill.

About the pictures, I need to scan them I know. And I will when I go retrieve them. The first one is of Mami with my older sister Doris, and the next one is Mami posing. I think she was beautiful and I always lamented not getting her nose. Every body else in the family did. Oh well, you can't dwell on that. Beneath that picture, are all my aunts minus Titi Sarita, who happened to sew all those lovely dresses. From left to right are Titi Juanita, Mami, Titi Georgina, and Titi Carmen.