Lola at North Avenue Beach

I don't schedule these things. It just kind of settles like a fine mist on certain days. The need to retreat and be alone is crucial. Reflection has lingered in memory since Saturday's workshop. Not all memories are fun.

The grandmother is banging on the door for attention. The conversation in my mind unfolds a little like this:

I ask, "Why me? We hardly hung out. There are others that are older and lived with you. Have more memories."

And her reply, "Because of all of them, you are the only one that writes." And there is a tone in her voice, that suggest disgust and disappointment by this fact. Then she adds with a softer edge, "And because you get it."
























Lola on North Avenue beach before they made it pretty for everyone but us. When changing into your bathing suit in the open air locker rooms was terrorizing because of the neglect, the dirt, and the threat of a rat jumping out at you. The urge to claw my way up into my mothers arms because I couldn't stand the vulnerability of my bare feet on that dirty floor. That was back then when a day at the beach meant we had to tolerate messages that insisted that all Mexicans suck.