Major Assignment I

Claudia Lizeth Lozano Garza
A01138910
English Adv I 103
August 26th, 2010
Major Assignment I

Roots

It was a warm, sunny month of May of 1938, a year before the noisy World War II began, when my grandmother, Olga, was born. She is the second child out of the four her parents would eventually had, all of them girls. Her family was living in General Terán, Nuevo León, a very small town to the north of Monterrey. But despite of the thumping happiness of her sister and parents about her fussing arrival to the world, something went wrong: Her mother fell terribly ill shortly after giving her birth. His father was worried to the rust because he knew he couldn’t take care of his job, wife, 2-year-old, and new born.

When my grandma turned 9 years old her spruced birthday present was a blue, cottony dress and to tell her that the dress was for her to wear when returning with her parents in a few days from then. Because of her mother’s scorching illness, and the lack of possibilities of her dad, she was raced by an American woman –probably a religious missioner- that offered herself to look after her. Then, when my grandma was a little bit older and was going to start school, her grandparents took her and continued to take care of her.

My grandma’s parents had moved to Saltillo, Coahuila in 1940 so she was chirping anxious when she heard the news, besides, the most tickling thing was to know that finally she was going to be with her parents and sisters and stay with them indefinitely.

Some days after her birthday, she put on the blue dress and her grandfather took her to the Bus Station in order to go to Saltillo. She still remembers the smooth face and the blue, breezy smell of her grandfather. They bought the tickets, got on the bus, sat down and wait. Those road-hours have been the longest for her. My grandma says one of the most beautiful things back then were the landscapes, and traveling was the best way to enjoy them. Puce, dry mountains, the dusty desert, animals running by the sides... everything encapsulated into a yellow patina because of the spring sun.

The whining agony ended then. It was their bus stop: in front of that fragrant Restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It was the time to grip the cases and run. My grandma and her grandfather got off the bus and they saw the family standing on the woody porch. Mom was holding Diana, the new baby sister, and dad was holding the older sister’s -Ofelia - hand.

While she was standing, frozen because of her sudden fulfilled with happiness, my grandma started to notice things: It smelled like cabrito. Her mother had made cabrito for her! The smell was so strong that she could already taste it deep down her throat. The radio was on with her dad’s favorite music. The soft sun was pleasant and comfy, not too hot. The air was warm but fresh, and the desert’s dust that the wind was sweeping up was very nice to the skin too, because it was a very thin powder.

She ran the fastest she had ever ran and held her family as hard as she had never did. After that, my grandma says, it is hard to remember because everything suddenly turns into a bright flash. The rest she remembers  are the textures of her family’s clothes, a very soft cotton, and the wooden chairs, scratchy; also have eaten her mom’s cabrito and a little bit of its spiced flavor; and have played with her sisters from the afternoon to the night, under the most beautiful sunset, and starry sky she has ever seen.

My grandma told me she has thought about this day many times during her life because before that happened her life was, at certain level, empty. She needed her parents. She thinks that probably because they were separated many years, she grew a very strong love on them, so be together was the accomplishment of her sighing dream at that time making her feel satisfied. Also, she says that she wouldn’t be the person she is if she hadn’t had that uncommon childhood, she could realize at an early age which are the most important things in life: she grew up, she matured. My grandmother learnt to appreciate things more, because sometimes one takes things for granted and, although it wasn’t her situation, she never forgot that. She says you must always appreciate what you have because you never know how people’s lives can change.

Me is...

"Who are you? said the Caterpillar. [...] Alice replied, rather shyly, I.. I hardly know, sir, just at present... at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." (Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. Fragment)

I sometimes think I am a sinous square that builds (or destroys?) a shapeless pattern because of my passions, which are faced against each other, what leads us to my definetely and forever undecided mind, that hasn't found any thunderous favorite. I have a deep fasination with the human aspect of the being, but I also find "artificial" a very roaring concept. My worship for nature is as strong as my fear for it, for example, I love mountains but I have fobia for heights. I am matted but I am also quiet. I would have a neoclasic painting hanging on one's room wall and a shell just to show a lot of empty  Coke bottles on another room's wall. (Here ends the noisy, heavy, and paradox-like part of me)

But there's one thing I do know: I have a splintered heart with enough space to keep a sweet reminiscence of every country in the world, but even then and after all, my greatest melancholy will keep me loving my mildewed Mexico more than everything. I have a booming hunger of learning, about what? About everything: I am ambition itself, but that doesn't mean I'm not coward because I kind of am, though. There have been acrid incidents that have got stocked inside my mind's graveyard (or like some people like to call it: memory) but each of them, even rotten, covered with fungus, and encripted, is a taste bud of my heart's mouth.