 |
New Shoots - By LaTonya Baldwin |
If I had to describe my life in non-sentimental terms, I'd say it has been marred by chaos and crisis. Many of us have led less than glamorous lives, and mine has been no exception. And, like others, I have sought solace and stability despite my circumstances. I sought refuge at home. For eighteen years home was on a modest block on Detroit's northwest side. I lived on San Juan. Our street was unusual, because you could only enter our block from either Six Mile Road or Puritan. Other streets were divided with additional side streets. When my parents purchased our house in 1965, the neighborhood was still integrated (White Flight hadn't occurred yet), and neighbors looked out for one another. People mowed their lawns, planted flowers, and painted their houses. Our block was populated with young families, elderly singles, childless couples, and single moms. Most household incomes were modest and some, like my parents, were doing pretty well-- especially considering their ages. Our neighborhood was representative of blacks moving up and moving west in Detroit. My aunt once told me that when she was growing up, blacks didn't live west of Grand Boulevard. Our house was plain, a frame with charcoal shingles, and a gray wooden porch with black iron railings. Originally, it had two small bedrooms on the first floor, a large open attic, a small, screened back porch, and a tiny backyard with two laundry poles parallel to the alley. Our yard was fenced because my father always kept dogs. When we lost our keys, our saving grace was the wide basement windows secured with flimsy latches. We had to break into our own house to get in. I remember summer days filled with hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of our house. And art, created with colored chalk, and baking mud pies in the sun. And I recall my heart beating wildly as I raced home, ran up the stairs gripping the porch banister on the furthest side from the sidewalk. I was petrified with fear. A five year old neighborhood boy, a child my own age, taunted me: Gimme some pussy. Gimme some pussy. Gimme some pussy. He harassed my sister and me relentlessly. Looking back, I wonder why I was so afraid. He never stepped on our porch and it was broad daylight. He was a nasty little boy with a runny nose, filthy clothes, and a sinister character. Before I entered school, my parents had the attic converted into two bedrooms. One was quite large, with an area for sleeping and a smaller area for reading or watching television. The second bedroom was suitable for a single child. My parents' room had two closets. My mother's closet was deep and wide, big enough for children to hide in and fantasize for hours. There was a standard closet to store my father's clothes. The second bedroom had a large closet, too. The closet had another door that led to the unfinished part of the attic, which ran the full length of the back of the house and back to my mothers closet. I enjoyed hours of play there. I was fascinated with that part of the house. There was an another closet in the unfinished part of the attic. My mother was a pack rat and a clothes fanatic. She had all sorts of marvelous keepsakes there. In there were her gold and maroon Commerce High School varsity sweater, retired white and black go-go boots, funky fudge and banana, zigzag prints just wide enough to cover youthful hips and boast slender brown legs. And I imagined the days that the bold splashes of tangerine and lemon drop yellow, mini sheers wind blown, billowed from her graceful neck. Amidst the fashion frenzy, wrapped carefully, was her wedding gown. It was floral, an off-white satin. It was refined and elegant just like my mother. Little more than a decade later, I would wear it at my own ceremony. I played in my secret playhouse for hours and when I was distressed, I hid there. I had rehearsed a thousand times how I would hide in the other closet if an intruder ever broke into our house and I was alone -- not an reasonable fear, as my sister and I were often alone). Countless times I traversed the space between the two bedrooms. In the hall there was another closet. Because of the light from the hallway, it wasn't scary. This closet showed the greatest tell tale signs that this part of the house had been the attic because of the triangular shape of the space. My mother hid our Christmas toys in here till we got older and less afraid of the unknown. My mother had unopened wedding gifts here: fine, gold-rimmed dinnerware, intricately patterned flatware, party bowls, and glasses of unusual shapes and sizes, and trinkets that sang when clinked together in small chubby hands. For a young girl, our closets provided the stimulus for endless hours of daydreams and play. Just before I turned nine, my parents separated. One day while my father was at work my mother packed up the house and announced we were moving. Innocently, I asked when was Daddy coming. She flatly answered that he wasn't. I was crushed. I panicked. I hated her. We moved in with my aunt. Almost a year later we moved backed. Home took on an even deeper relevance. Over the years, our house underwent major metamorphosis: from shingles to aluminum siding, the color of red bricks; mini-paned windows to picture windows; from a porch and front lawn to enclosed entryway and miniature concrete driveway. Its face changed, but it remained a fortress and safe haven for me. Periodically, my parents threatened to move. The neighborhood was going down. All the home improvements were not enough to appease my parents. They were ready to move on like the rest of their friends. But our friends and stability were here. It was the one constant in my life. Our parents always gave in to our pleas--or so we thought. Later, I contemplated that they, too, had had a sense of security in the place and were comfortable with the lifestyle they enjoyed because of the modest house. My sister and I went to college. In 1985, my parents moved. Growing up, I fantasized that my children would have the experience of growing up in that house. But my life was filled with chaos and crisis. From my first marriage through my second divorce there was a series of homes, a lost sense of security, and unfulfilled dreams. As hard as I tried, I could not replicate the skewered sense of the perfect home life that I fantasized I had when I was a child. As an adult, I often have recurring dreams about our house on San Juan. In my dreams, the house is always mystical, larger than its true dimensions. In some dreams, it is more grand, the closets more elaborate and fascinating than I could ever describe. In other dreams my secret hiding places have been emptied and converted. I am always returning, looking for something, trying to recapture some innocence that I vaguely remember. I am always disappointed. I'm no longer welcome there. There have been more renovations and the house belongs to someone else. It isn't my home anymore. - LaTonya Baldwin 2001
|
