As long as you can go back, I tell myself…

Faces, places, and borders they all are the same, they fuse into one big pile of memories and emotions… homogenize in my mind I sort through them and separate them, I give each a home, a place, a time… I divide them into two groups “ then 1” and “then 2.”

“Then” as searching for your pocket to retrieve something feared to be lost. I go vividly in my mind to my cradle town, the main road off the freeway, the plazas and narrow streets, I turn left at the (tiendita) where I used to buy food for my cat, I pass the ugly brown house with yellow tiles, the busy street is next, in the middle is Don Jorge selling the news of the day, he recognizes me or maybe “my father in me.” Three more blocks and I am at grandma’s house, I turned the corner and there it is ...I take a deep breath... the end of the road always takes me to the beginning.