On Living Situations, Prior
When you’re poor, you’re at the mercy of others and God*. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
It’s hard to remember what it was like when I was younger, but my parents marvel now at how poor they used to be. Once, my mother tells me, we slept on the floor of someone’s garage. You see, we had been living in an apartment with two other families, packed and uncomfortable, but then, one day, member of Familia X stabbed member of Familia Y, and so we, Familia Z, had to move, that very second. But the room we had sought wasn’t ready yet; so, on the concrete, we slept. I was an infant.
“It’s like the Nativity,” I said brightly.
“No.”
It wasn’t, my mother explained, because she was pretty sure Mary never had male strangers staring at her breasts as she breast-fed on her bed (the floor). It makes her sad, to remember those days, when she had to scrounge up pennies for hamburgers and rely on family members for free babysitting**. In those days of food stamps and garage sales, we only had what others let us have. We had nothing, most of the time.
I told her I appreciate where I come from, that I wouldn’t have it any other way***, and in many ways I really mean it. When I was a teenager I struggled, sort of, because I wanted every single outfit and pair of shoes in the entire universe****, but then, without that struggle I would probably be more of an asshole about my things and people. I still have clothes from when I was twelve that I still wear*****. I have basically every book I’ve purchased since I was 9. Overall, my creative muscles are stronger for having forced into being an innerness that allows, absorbs, and listens, and my instincts are to revere that which can’t be bought. If you want to impress me, you do it by thinking in an inspired way, showing a certain kindness, or making something that no one else can make. I don’t care if you have the cleanest house, the nicest car, or the funniest story about that one time you shook that famous person’s hand. Yeah, the number one way to piss me off forever is to be mean and a showoff or ignorant and a showoff******.
My dad says they’ve suppressed a lot of the memories from when they were in their twenties. They were always one bad accident away from being in the kind of trouble you don’t recover from, and I suppose that’s why they went to church a lot back then, to pray to god that there is a God, because the alternative, to bear the weight of survival alone, was not an option for a young, growing family in a foreign country.
But these days—by sheer luck and the grace of some higher power only, my dad says—my parents are thinking of moving to a bigger, nicer house from their already pleasant and cozy home in Riverside. As I write this, they’re shopping around online, and I’m happy to report that, no matter where they go or if they decide to stay, they have options, none of which will involve sleeping on floors or watching people get stabbed, all of which will be wonderful places. Mainly because they’ll be there. If you spend any time with me and my family you’ll very quickly see that there’s only laughter, because fighting is for people who value things over people or who have the luxury of being boring.
Not in my parent’s house.
*But only if he’s anything like in the New Testament. He’s real gangster in the OT.
**Free babysitting meant shoddy babysitting because I was once kidnapped for several hours. I returned, safe and sound, but I was too young to explain how or why and where. Bananas.
***But then, I wasn’t the young, impoverished mother without an education in this scenario… Moving on.
****Still do!
*****I can take a stain out of anything.
******Nice showoffs welcome!
