Smatterings of My Life

The mornings are heavy. The bed I wake up in is still strange. It’s a foreigner’s bed and I am still in a foreign country.

I expect to hear Spanish in the streets. Buenos dias. ¿Cómo has amanecido? Instead I hear my neighbor’s kids through the ceiling, hopping their way to the breakfast table. I hit 'snooze' in order to drift back into a life I was once certain about.

Back awake. Time to get up for real. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got a life to live and money to spend. But I don’t have enough of it.

The shower doesn’t stimulate. It warms my muscles into jelly. My brain is slow to wake, plan, motivate. Mate isn’t the same without Argentinean and American climbers; without my gaucho friend giving me a hard time about boiling the water; without the peaks of Valle Trinidad in the background. To drink mate in a rush is a sin. But I gotta get to work, so I swallow it, pick up the pace and leave my apartment.


“This is bullshit!” a student exclaims in fifth period. Apparently my late policy isn’t up to his standards. He knows the drill. He’s been late eight times already. He sulks into a chair outside of the room and scribbles out the conjugations to the verb tener. Yo tieno. Tu tiena. El tiena. Nosotros tener.

“Not good enough Chris. Try again. Use your notes from yesterday. All you have to do is copy exactly what you wrote down in the notes.”

He hands in his amended work. Yo tieno. Tu tiena. El tiena. Nosotros tenemos. Ellos tener.

“We’ll work on this Chris. Just come inside.”

First period fades through to second, to third, to fourth. My energy is maintaining. The students’ energy is not. We all count down to lunch; to the end of the day.

“Hey Josh. Can I read about my dad in your creative writing class?”

“Sure Jake. You know, you don’t have to though.”

“I want to. I liked the exercise and want to share what I wrote.”

“Sure man. That’d be cool.”

Jake reads about his dad’s death. He fell climbing in Eldorado Canyon two years ago. The rest of the class is silent, understanding, mature. They almost seem like men. I’m proud of them.

Last class of the day. The room is too hot. My students sweat through Orwell. Orwell’s Winston and Julia sweat in an upstairs room while clinging to hope; to each other. Class ends and my students stay five minutes extra to talk about the book.

“Don’t they realize that every one would be happier if there was a revolution?”

“I don’t think they have the power of realization?”

“Well what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly.”


My sister’s in town. She’s staying at my mom’s house. Her three year old son is with her. I’m nervous. I haven’t seen him in two years. Will he like his uncle?

Upon first sight the little body timidly approaches, looks up for miles to catch a glimpse of my face, and hugs my leg. I ask if he likes to draw and then I produce a sketch pad and markers. Together we make Picasso look like a dilettante; Rembrandt a chump.

“That circle is the bomb, Cristian! Let’s hit it with some orange.”

“Let’s play racecars instead” he so wisely retorts.

“Agreed.”

We’re off to the driveway at sixty miles per hour. Cristian shifts into fourth and flies toward the mailboxes like lightning. I fall behind, my clutch is sticky, my motor chokes and Cristian speeds ahead. We pass the plum tree on the neighbor’s yard, the rock at the end of the drive. I catch up to Cristian’s tail, but he shifts into fifth and sends exhaust into my face hitting the mailboxes for the victory. I go to give him a high five but he’s already investigating a spider that’s eating a bee.

“I’m a dinosaur now” he exclaims.

“Well, me too then.”

We carnivorously snarl and growl our way down the sidewalk, destroying everything in our path. Scared, feeble dinosaurs move out of our way as we demolish palm trees underfoot. Occasionally we stop to let out massive stentorian roars, just to let people know that we are dinosaurs. Our footprints mark the path of havoc leading from the driveway to the park.

“Let’s swing.”

“Good idea.”

Cristian sails upward into the air. He flies into the clouds almost touching the…

”I have to go potty.”

Out of the swing, back up the sidewalk, past the havoc and destruction, past the mailboxes, past the racecourse, past the rock at the front of the drive, into the front door and to the bathroom.

“Don’t you have to potty too?”

“Maybe later, Cristian. But you go for now.”



Grandma sits in a rocking chair.

“I’ve always wanted one of these,” she smiles, rocking to and fro.

I watch her and I finally get it. After 26 years I finally see that she knows everything. She's the sage I've been looking for. How couldn’t she be? She’s been through it all.

Grandma, I was in South America. She’s been there several times. Grandma I’m going through culture shock. She moved to America alone when she was a teenager. She didn’t speak any English. Grandma I feel lost, scared, unstable. She was once a refugee.

I embrace my Grandma hoping that wisdom can be passed through hugs. It kind of works. I understand compassion and kindness a bit better. There are more lessons to be learned from her so I listen attentively. I’m upset that I understand the lessons but don’t feel them.



Dinner is served and my mother doesn’t mention that I owe her 550 dollars. She doesn’t mention that my stored knickknacks are cluttering up her garage. She doesn’t mention that I’ve only seen her six times in the last three months; seven times in the last two years. I live sixteen miles away from her but am almost as far as I was while in Peru. I realize that I only take on challenges I know I’ll be successful at. I haven’t taken on how to show my mother how much I appreciate her.

Dinner finishes and I wash the dishes.


“Cristian, come help your tio Josh,” I yell to my prehistoric, fuel injected sobrinito. He's also bilingual.

He drops his videogame and runs to help put dishes in the dishwasher. I flick water at him and we laugh and make sure everything is spick and span. I tell him to go wipe a booger on his mom. He laughs and runs around like a humming bird. Colibrí, colibrí. Ayúdame con los platos. I use him as a mop to wipe the counters. He wiggles too much to be a good mop. I don’t mind. His laughter is infectious.


Time to leave. I give grandma a big hug. I give sister a big hug. I give mom a big hug. I shake hands with mom’s boyfriend. I shake hands with sister’s boyfriend. I give Cristian a hug and kiss on the ear and he recoils into giggles.

“Buenas noches tio Josh.”

“Buenas noches Cristian.”