I AM 37

When I entered the second grade, my entire life changed. My parents had always wanted me in Catholic school, but it wasn't until then that a school bus was made available to my neighborhood to make their dream a reality. Their dream was my nightmare: I had to lose my friends, wear a uniform and go to a foreign place to learn about God every day instead of just sing about Him on Sundays. I cried the whole way there on my first day and then froze in silent horror when then car door opened. My shyness was suddenly compounded by fear. I shared polite smiles and nodded when people spoke to me, but words were all but lost.

Inside the classroom the organization began with our seating. It was alphabetical so I, who had sat front-row-center in my first grade class, had been relegated to the last seat in the last row of the classroom.  I felt like an outsider, an add-on, one who could easily be left out.

Our first assignment was to learn to cover our textbooks and put our "numbers" on them. Each one of us was given a number based on our alphabetical placing. I was 37.  To this day I can picture the brown paper covered book spines with the large black number 37 etched on it - those were my books. I was number 37. No one else ever was. In subsequent years, we lost students, so that I would eventually become 36 (it felt so wrong for me to be using all of Michael T.'s books that year), but never did we ever get more students. No one else would ever be 37.

Since that labeling, the number 37 has always held an awkwardly special place in my heart. It was "my thing" in that new school: I was last. Last in the seating, last to come to the school, last to be finished copying the notes from the board, last to be done with a test and, as a rider of the "Green" bus which was notoriously late, many times I was the last one in school. However, in all that finality, there was also a uniqueness because no one else could be me - not in reality, nor in our silly numbered system.

This past Saturday was my birthday and with it came a familiar label than makes me feel like this is a year I have been waiting for nearly thirty years. I am 37 years old. In other words, after all these years, I am 37 all over again.

What does it mean for me? It feels right. And, based on the month leading up to it, it also feels like I might be able to take hold of the reigns of my life again and get moving in the direction I originally intended with this adult life. Just like back in the second grade, I may be the last one to get to all of the finish lines we set out before ourselves, but that doesn't mean I won't get there. I am 37 and my time has finally come.

Earth Day 1997

Spring had truly begun and instead of enjoying the rebirth of beautiful weather, for nearly twelve hours we were left with the maddening loop of light music and the pathetic gloom of fluorescent lighting. We were trapped in the high, thick cement walls broken only by the almost forgettable, dwarfed skylight of the Staten Island Mall. As the customers milled in with newborn relief from another winter's assault, they smelled of the grass they had just cut, the soil they spread and the flowers they fertilized. Behind our respective counters of service, we continued to be mired in the same aromas of every season. Bobby, stuck behind the deli counter, wore the comforting cologne of freshly baked breads and bagels; I, on the other hand, could to do nothing to shake free from the coffee grinds that covered me whole (others often talk of their love of these smells when passing them briefly, not knowing the hell of their ever-presence).

It seemed we were doomed, again, to have a season pass outside the walls of our employment prison without our presence. On that day, I felt a fury inside me upon this realization. It was Earth Day, after all, and I deeply believed that On Earth Day one should appreciate nature! The forest green hat embroidered with my store's name on it squeezed a little tighter. The air in the store felt thinner. The hexagonal tile patterns beneath my feet and the endless inventory of chutneys and preserves were dizzying. All the things that I once thought made our store stand out above the rest, crashed down around me in a flood of familiar. It was all a trap. None of it got me outside.

So, when Bobby asked me to go to the diner with him that night after work, I embraced the opportunity to drive across the island with my windows down allowing the wind to blow all the aromatic evidence of our confinement away. And when, after the enchanting date at the diner from another time, he suggested we go to the park even though it was nearing midnight, that's when I knew it was love.

That was the night of our first date. The night of our first kiss. The night neither one of us wanted to trade one indoors for another. It was Earth Day 1997, the night we didn't want to go home. 

My Hometown A to Z Challenge

Staten Island has been my home for nearly thirty-seven years. Everything I have experienced in this life has been through the filter of a native Staten Islander's senses.

Whether we approve or not our homes help frame our lives and our personalities. For the next twenty-six weeks I am going to embark on a blogging A to Z challenge of my own creation giving a nod of respect to the place that made me who I am today: each week I will post one creative non-fiction post inspired by a Staten Island location beginning with that week's letter.

I hope to flex my memoirist muscles with this activity and, at the same time, share a little bit of myself and my home with you. If you are a fellow writer/blogger who would like to join the challenge I'll be starting next Monday with an essay based on a memory of a hometown spot that begins with an "A" - come on back and share your link in the comments section, I'd love to have a buddy along for this ride!

My Room

Back in business with the Scintilla Project. Here are the prompts for today:  
Day 4: Monday, March 19, 2012

• Prompt A: Talk about your childhood bedroom. Did you share? Slam the door? Let someone in you shouldn't have? Where did you hide things?
• Prompt B: What does your everyday look like? Describe the scene of your happiest moment of every day.

I truly enjoyed journeying back in my memory to tackle Prompt A. 

The centerpiece of a my magical childhood private palace was a four post full sized bed with room below for my Wheaton terrier to sleep and hide. The wallpaper was peach with tiny flowers and the blankets were frilly with peach ribbons woven through in design. The furniture was a rich dark wood, Victorian in style, which didn't seem strange to me since we spent most weekends browsing through antique stores in quiet towns so unlike the place where we lived.

I would lay diagonally across the bed as I was swept away from island to island on the words of the books my father brought home for me to read. I would spread out across the hardwood floor pouring over thousands of bits of cardboard with pieces of pictures on their backs as I painstakingly worked on jigsaw puzzles night after night, sliding them under my bed until I was finished. I would take a running jump from the door on to the bed when I came home with a new cassette I would play incessantly in my stereo while reading the lyrics to every song in their tiny print on the folded inserts.

I would tell my little brother stories in that room and from that room. His room was beside mine and when it was time to go to bed, oftentimes we would lay awake whispering from room to room. He, laying normally in his bed since the head was near the door, and I, flipped upside down, with my head at the foot of my bed so I could squint in his direction. Oh how I wish those conversations could be recorded! If words could become realities, I promise with those bedtime chats we two created kingdoms, creatures, space adventures and hilarity we would still enjoy until this day. We were imagineers, inventors and innocent.

I slept soundly in that room. It was safe. It was comfortable. It was certain in both day and night. When the sun rose,  my window to the world didn't see too far, but it was enough to fill my days with happiness. My bedroom window faced an enormous crab apple tree over my bed of strawberries in our backyard. Whatever the season, I felt connected not only to the world within my room, but that which I could see beyond it.

It was my home, it was my room and I pray that every child has one just as magical.

Review: Between Gears by Natalie Nourigat

I hadn't heard of Between Gears before last week, I wasn't anticipating its release, but something about it drew me in when I saw it sitting on the shelf of my comic book shop with the "New This Week" label below it. I grabbed the book, took a seat and flipped through. Between Gears is an autobiographical comic by Natalie Nourigat covering her last year of college in the University of Oregon. The black and white art inside appealed to me as I took note of some panels reminiscent of Anime or Manga style bringing a level of the fun and fantastic that offered an intriguing twist to this real-life comic. I noted that she was a fan of Hayao Miyazaki (this is a HUGE plus in my book).

I bought the book and brought it home.

For the next 24 hours I spent every free moment with my head in this book. Starting with September 17th of her senior year of college and ending on June 14th, Nourigat dedicated one page to the events of each day (except for June 14th where she stretched the rules to give us two pages) to take her readers on the journey as she shifted between gears of childhood into adulthood. It was a fascinating ride.

You may wonder what would be so fascinating about some girl's senior year of college. Well, first of all there is the simplicity in the fact that college is an exciting time for anyone who lives through it, and Ms. Nourigat had the foresight to capture it all - the big things all college students remember of the experience and even the small things that can be easily forgotten once adulthood sets in. In addition to the mundane magnificence of the college experience we can all share, Natalie Nourigat's senior year is filled with the excitement of a young girl who is majoring in Japanese, taking courses about super heroes and working on breaking into the world of comics and sequential art. I found myself on the edge of my seat, worried about the Natalie's thesis, hoping she would get to all of the conventions in her area and sweating over her deadlines. I felt like yelling into the book every time Tally (as she was known to her friends) would worry about completing Between Gears pages, "You did it! It's OK! I'm reading it and it's awesome!" but I think she knows that now. I just wanted to make sure you did too.

This is Natalie Nourigat's first book published by Image Comics. It is available now in your comic book shop or can be ordered online via Amazon. In the trade paperback readers are treated to bonus material including a description of the process behind the creation of the book.

This review was also shared on Word of the Nerd.

My Title and Tagline

The following is my response to the Write On Edge RemembeRED writing prompt of the week:

We’re doing something short and sweet for this week’s RemembeRED post.
Imagine your life, or a part of your life, as a title and tagline.
That’s it. Give us the title, and give us the tagline.

 



Hindsight is 20/20 Even If I'm Not
by Nicole D. Rivera
 

One woman's look back at her beautiful, imperfect life filled with love, loss, family, teaching  and two broken eyes.

Lost After Launching

I was in my classroom at my desk. We could have been eating lunch, in class, or just returning from recess, I don't remember. The fifth grade teacher was in the hallway crying. This woman who was part of my future, more "grown up," world was crying. She spoke to another teacher and I saw her eyes were red, too. Suddenly, as my teacher joined the hushed conversation, there seemed to be an epidemic of sorts - the adults in the small building were all distraught, whispering to each other in the protective world of the school's hallway while we, the children, the fragile, the ones who cried daily, sat speechless and wondering.

Teachers aren't supposed to cry. That's what I believed when I was nine years old.

My mind swirled not about why they were crying, but first about how. I thought about what it meant that in these short minutes that passed that we were the strong ones. I thought about what power could have swept them all away from us so uniformly - the lay teachers, the nuns, the parent volunteers - all those we were taught to run to in an emergency looked as though they needed someone to run to now. Who is left?

My teacher wiped her eyes, but her Irish decent betrayed her. She was red, her eyes puffy and her make-up was a mess. I didn't want her to tell us. I didn't want to be another casualty of this conversation. I steadied myself, told myself I wouldn't cry, told myself I'd be strong, and I told myself I didn't even have to care if I didn't want to.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there was a terrible accident. We all need to pray for the families of all of the astronauts on the Challenger..." The rest is a blur, until I reached home and saw that my father, another teacher was crying as well, along with my mother.

I didn't cry that day. I prayed. A lot. Not just for the families of the astronauts, but for the astronauts as well. I prayed for a miracle. I prayed for what was supposed to be. I prayed to understand.

On January 28, 1986, my teachers cried, a dream died and a hero of mine was lost 73 seconds into her great adventure. It was the first time I learned that not everything in this world makes sense. It was the first time I realized that even being an adult didn't mean that it would.

I didn't cry that day, but I've cried so many times about it since. Even today when seeing a picture of a perfectly successful launch I still can think of nothing else besides Christa McAuliffe, the woman I wanted to be.

Write on Edge had a Surprise Prompt today and I just happened to stumble over it. Here are the details: 
Take a look at the photo below and write. Don’t think too hard, just write what comes. Fiction or non-fiction. Don’t spend too long. Have fun!

Memories of Gloria, Waiting for Irene

It was 1985, less than a month before my ninth birthday. We weren't very close to my grandmother who didn't really raise my mother at that time, but she was still the only Gloria I knew. I wondered what it was like to have a song sung about you and have a really big storm named after you. It seemed exotic, dangerous and showy. I didn't understand these things, but imagined this somehow exemplified the woman I didn't truly know.

As the storm came closer, our emergency plan became more of an event:

• "We'll watch movies in the basement!" covered my mother's fear of us being near the windows. 
• "You can bring down all of the snack food you want with you! Make sure you bring drinks too! We're camping out!" was her nice way of saying upstairs will be off limits.
• "Let's bring flashlights and candles. We can keep the lights off for the movie!" Another great plan to make sure losing power would not be overly dramatic for her young children.

With all of this caution, there was also an excited energy in the air. Mom loved storms. I understood why when we watched a lightning storm in the Florida Keys during one vacation. Storms were dangerous, but they could also be quite beautiful. We watched our movie, distracted from Gloria, but what we didn't realize is that Mom was waiting. Mom was watching.

Seemingly out of no where, "The eye of the storm should be overhead now! Let's go see!" she was almost childlike in her glee. We didn't know what was coming, but based on her tone, is was bound to be good.

As we emerged from our darkened basement we were fascinated by the deep gray sky framed in our front windows. Mom practically skipped to the front door and opened it.

"Nicole, are you ready?" she was smiling wildly.

Wrapped up in her excitement, I smiled back, "For what?"

"I have an idea for an adventure. People must be going crazy stuck in their houses all day, do you want to go see them your candy bars?"

I looked over her shoulder, out the window. I never saw the world look that color. I never experienced such stillness in our suburban neighborhood. I could think of nothing more exciting than getting out there and feeling it. "Really?"

"Only a couple of houses. Only where I can see you. The neighbors will love it!"

This picture alone make me drool. I LOVE these.

And that was it - raincoat was adorned (with awesome hood, of course), World's Finest school fundraising candy box was grabbed and I ran! I don't remember who's house I went to first, but I remember the smiles, the laughs, and the rolled eyes. I remember the, "Is your mother crazy?" questions and the family's gathered around the various doors as they shared their own, "Can you believe this?" or, "Isn't she so funny?" I would always give Mom the credit and point back to her and my little brother standing in our front door, watching my every move and exchanging happy waves with the bemused neighbors.

It was pretty successful, although I didn't get to too many houses before I heard, "OK! Just one more," with a slight tone of worry.

Almost everyone bought multiple candy bars (you can imagine the ruckus I created in the homes with other kids on Mother Nature's house arrest!). I ran home elated. I made people happy. Even as a child, I knew there was no greater high. We all laughed as I shared my experience, telling Mom, Dad and my brother about the shock on people's faces, the children who begged for more candy, and the people who were so happy just to see chocolate!

Hurricane Gloria was scary for all of us, but that little adventure in the eye is one of my great memories of my childhood. It is analogous to so much of the life we lived in this house - storms were always swirling around us, tragedy laying wait, but somewhere, usually right in the middle of it all, my family would gather, bunker down together and share joy with the few we could touch.


I know storms can be dangerous. I know they can be scary, but I know, too, that inside every storm is a beauty waiting to be discovered.

To everyone on the East Coast awaiting Hurricane Irene (strangely, the name of my great-grandmother) be safe this weekend!  

Embrace only happy, silly adventures and make sure someone is always watching your back!

My Melancholy Monet Memory

This post was written in response to a writing prompt for  RemembeRED from Write On Edge. In an apparent attempt to make us all need some major happy pills after writing this week, this is this week's prompt: 

We all have them.

Memories that we wish we could forget…things that we wish we could banish from our minds.

Imagine that writing down your worst memory will free you of it.

What is it?

Why does it haunt you?

What could you have done differently?

Write it down and let it go.

Let’s keep it to 600 words or less.

 


I thought I would be haunted forever. I thought this time would live in my mind more vividly than any other in my 29 years. I thought I would relive it over and over in my mind for the rest of my existence.

I was wrong.

Instead, I was scarred. The outcome, everyone knows, but the details - oh those stubborn old details. My healed and scarred soul allowed only formless, broad coverings of the worst attack it has ever seen. Only a few power images force their way through to build this impressionist view of the most life-altering event of my life.

Sometimes, though, that scar itches.

**

The first day, a Thursday, the skies turned black and opened whole, ready to swallow me. They threw water at me. They shouted with thunder. They blinded with lightning. They left me behind saturated and beaten to battle with their elements as I gave the only give left giving... bring her home.
I was her rock. For the love of all things heaven and Earth, I promise you, this is what she said to me the day before. “You have always been my rock. You have to bring me home.”

**

“Help me,” she said weakly, but her frail frame, her eyes and soul screamed  it. We were alone in the hallway, in the middle of the night . She tried to go to the bathroom by herself. A reminder that she, too was eroding on this trip.

“I will.” This night, I believe my words. I believe in my power. The rock has only begun to be battered by the winds of defeat.

**

Hospice arrived with the chisel of reality. I feel the debris fall to my feet and wonder how long the rock will last. I make a phone call before it is too late. I call the Pastor and tell him, “You must do what needs to be done.”

**

I check on her incessantly. I bring her ice. I bring her morphine. I touch her hair, her arm, hold her hand and rest my head on her shoulder, remembering a time, pre-rock, when that is where I belonged. That is my spot.

**

I cried in the shower. There wasn’t enough water to wash away the tears. I would emerge a clean, water-beaten rock. A little more eroded, but shiny all the same.

**

“Help me,” I would hear her whisper, now lips cracked from lack of fluids, as the evil inside her stole everything we gave.

“I’m trying.” A new response as the evil inside also stole my confidence, my power, my hope. I began to understand that no matter the size of this rock, the erosion will win.

**

“Help me,” no longer words spoken, but now just mouthed and I’m the only one lip reading. Tears hot in my eyes that I hope her yellowing eyes can’t see, my mind screams back, “I can’t!”

**

And then a self-inflicted avalanche, “It can’t be much longer, can it?” Guilty to want to keep her. Filled with an unnameable darkness within realizing granting her reprieve meant wishing her death.

**

It took ten days for my mother to die after I brought her home. She was widowed with two children at the age of forty. For 29 years she never let me go hungry, cold, or want for a damn thing. She was my rock. While I know, if she were here, she would tell me that I did everything I could have, all I know is that my worst memory will always be being helpless when it really mattered.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

The following post is taken directly from one of my hand-printed Reader's Journal. I will be sharing these reflections each week on the Rivera Runs Through It blog. The date at the end of each post is the date of the original writing, which is typically the date I completed the book. The reflections are short, but represent my initial reactions to a book, a brief summary of the book or the questions it raised for me at the time. I hope you enjoy this segment in my blog and feel free to comment on what you read here.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

I bought this book merely because I was amused by the title, I thought, "Is this guy serious?!" It ends up that, for the most part, he is not. It seems that Mr. Eggers has that same kind of sarcastic sense of humor that I tend to have in my most hyper of moods. This was the first memoir I have read, and unless anyone writes in this same style, probably the last.

Dated: 06/01

Special note: I have read other memoirs after this book and enjoyed them!
 Are you a fan of memoirs? 
What is your favorite memoir?