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A Field Guide To The Wilderness Area Known As Me

Crossing Borders

An Interview With Richard Rodriguez

My grandmother always told me that I was hers, that I was Mexican. That was her role. It was not my teacher’s role to tell me I was Mexican. It was my teacher’s role to tell me I was an American. The notion that you go to a public institution in order to learn private information about yourself is absurd. We used to understand that when students went to universities, they would become cosmopolitan. They were leaving their neighborhoods. Now we have this idea that, not only do you go to first grade to learn your family’s language, but you go to a university to learn about the person you were before you left home. So, rather than becoming multicultural, rather than becoming a person of several languages, rather than becoming confident in your knowledge of the world, you become just the opposite. You end up in college having to apologize for the fact that you no longer speak your native language.

The Blue Devils Of Blue River Avenue

Whether I was at the Sambeauxs’ or the Millers’ or the Carrs’, or just out in the street with my little buddies, it was always the same. They were like hothouse tomatoes pushing hard for what they thought was the light. We would hide in a bush, or cluster in the treehouse, or lean back among the interstices of the towering, ragged, catwalk hedge, and the topic would invariably arise, spelled out in red letters above our heads: S-E-X.

Fallen Angels

A stolen backpack, a lesson on self-esteem, a stranger and a thunderstorm

Time, Attachment, Hair

It is the morning of February 1, 1969, my wedding day, and the Riverside Salon is awash in panic. I should be at the church already, but my long hair simply will not dry. Hairdressers are coming at me from every angle with blow-dryers and curling irons, holding clips in their mouths, cursing.

Poof

Jayne, my hairdresser, has just had her eyebrows tattooed. Two black scabs arch across her forehead. “I don’t dare frown,” she says, “or they might bleed. But, oh, when the scabs fall off, my eyebrows will be deep gold, to match my new hair. And even when I go swimming, I won’t lose my face.”

If I Were God

If I were God, I would make a world exactly like this one. I love its inconsistencies, its contradictions. I love it that this river flows around stones and finds its own way.

My New Car

After lunch, R. asked me to give him a ride. We walked across the street to my car. When he saw my beat-up station wagon, he looked at me quizzically. I thought things were going well, he said.

The Second Half Of Life

An Interview With Mark Gerzon

The phrase “growing old” suggests the only thing going on during aging is the passage of time and the deterioration of the body. I think something else is happening, however. I believe that, as we enter the second half of life, the side of ourselves that is neglected asserts itself more powerfully; I call that wholeness.

The Game Of High School

Bob Penny, voted Most Self-Absorbed Hunk by a committee of me, said, I am in my big-boob period, as he pretended to swoon over Lisa Belia. I took his remark to be of the making-me-jealous variety. I didn’t even have to pretend to ignore it, because I was in love with you.