Time and Again
Graduation from high school seems as if it happened yesterday, but since I am not a person who keeps track of time. Like my Granddaughter, Amber, I'm a dreamer with my mind firmly focused on dreams for the future. I think I have a daughter like that too. High School was something I lived through but I have no close connections to anyone in my graduation class. I remember two people well Linda Koenig and Gary Rothbart but I was never in their group of friends. I remember a couple of Bobs and a Richard but do not ask any more than that from my memory. It looks like the planners of the event have out done themselves and I will be missing a lot of fun. However, who would I go with? I'm an only child whose husband is dead and whose children are busy with their lives. I can't date them?
When I was high school age I had to move several times so I never stayed with any one group. My best friend during high school years was Judith G. Herman and our school Walton High School in the Bronx was far from the Bruin Den in Long Beach California where I finished my high school days.
So I'll spare myself feelings of being an outsider by NOT going to the latest high school graduation reunion. I"ll not mention the number of years this year makes because like the dreamer that I am I don't feel that old. :-)
It may be that I'm being unreasonably sensitive for although many of my dreams came true, I've not "made it" in the ways that matter to most USAmericans.
So while my fellow graduates from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach California are celebrating, I'll be writing out part of my "memoirs" for my family and for myself. I might, like other Latinas, include the feelings of balancing on the lines that define USAmerican and Latina cultures and hope that I find a revival of memories and joy from my past that I may have overlooked. I think I owe it to Ernesto Rodriguez and Escolastica Oquendo to finish this one project.
When I was high school age I had to move several times so I never stayed with any one group. My best friend during high school years was Judith G. Herman and our school Walton High School in the Bronx was far from the Bruin Den in Long Beach California where I finished my high school days.
So I'll spare myself feelings of being an outsider by NOT going to the latest high school graduation reunion. I"ll not mention the number of years this year makes because like the dreamer that I am I don't feel that old. :-)
It may be that I'm being unreasonably sensitive for although many of my dreams came true, I've not "made it" in the ways that matter to most USAmericans.
So while my fellow graduates from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach California are celebrating, I'll be writing out part of my "memoirs" for my family and for myself. I might, like other Latinas, include the feelings of balancing on the lines that define USAmerican and Latina cultures and hope that I find a revival of memories and joy from my past that I may have overlooked. I think I owe it to Ernesto Rodriguez and Escolastica Oquendo to finish this one project.
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