A Sense of Place

Growing up a Rivera meant something huge to my father. My father is 100% Puerto Rican, right off the boa. His words, not mine, but a phrase I've adopted when describing my father. he's also beautiful, too smart for his own good or anyone else's. He has 11 children by nine different women. My mother was murdered when we were 10, so we, us three, my twin and baby brother, became my father's luggage. Royal luggage, I have to add. We were bounced from stepmom to stepmom, nowhere very long except my hat Claudette's. When she was well and my dad would go back to "college," it was great. For being Puerto Rican and Italian, she was a big woman: Big black hair, very tall, big hands and the biggest mouth in New York. She had sayings like "who took you." I visited her with my first girlfriend. I tried to explain our relationship to her, she says what's this you say, what's the lesmomin, who took you? Where you come from? 

Her way of seizing life through her now to me as a kid. A coat and hat rack in every room. A magazine bin in every room, plastic on all the furniture, owls everywhere you look. We never brought friends over because before they even come in she had to know what people they came from. The one and only time I tried was with my friend Olivia. Aunt Claudette leans down to her and says who do you come from? 

Olivia, looking up, says huh?

You know, don't be crazy, what's your mom and dad? Olivia tells Anna Claire Melinda and John Saldone. My aunt stands upright, hands on her hips, staring down at us, and says you know Rosie, your papa had a plan for her uncle Jimmy Saldone's life. Olivia ran away crying that her uncle Jimmy died last year. 

Of course I asked why she cared where everyone came from. She, like always, told me to put my shoes in a rack my coat on a rack and change my clothes so I don't wet The plastic on the furniture, Then proceeds to tell me, you need to know where you come from so you don't whine your whole life away like Olivia. 

When she starts I want to find the box or plastic bin I belong in so I can figure out where I came from. My aunt put so much into me, from her house, racks, bins, and plastic wrap, to the slap my uncle got for his feet on the coffee table she swore was new but was bought before I was born. In my head I can go there and feel safe, loves, and find out where I come from and who took me.

-Verna Sealey