Backin' Up

So I began to share a bit of my life with someone last night, and in doing so I realized that I don't often do so. Rather than try to keep tabs on who knows about my life and who doesn't, I'll toss a little bit out there now. If you'd like to know, here goes. Else, skip away.

I was born in Flushing, Queens. If you don't know what that means, Queens is a burrough of New York City. I lived there with my mother, father, and sister through the end of first grade. My dad worked for Mitsubishi, spent his weeknights smoking and chattering away in Japanese in his office, and spent his weekends golfing or driving us into the city for dim sum and visits to Grandma Nobuko and Uncle Veda.

My mother did not have a job, though she volunteered as a teaching assistant at my elementary school once I entered first grade. We did not have a car and often walked everywhere; fortunately, we were only a block away from school. I often came home for lunch, and once luckily missed a shooting because of it.

The summer after first grade, my mother brought my sister and me up to New Hampshire to visit with my cousins. We did this every few years, but this time we never went back home. I last saw my house at age 7 without knowing that I'd never see it again; it's strange to think about now, I suppose. The change was quite a shocker. I went from having Yugoslavian landlords that felt like a kitten in the house was no different from a horse in the kitchen to having my closest neighbors halfway down the road with three collies, and my cousins gaining a cat every few months. School was not on the next block over but in the next town over. There was no longer a school festival to celebrate different ethnic backgrounds and cultures; instead, we toured the farms owned by students' parents to watch maple syrup boil down and to ride mules. Don't get me wrong - I love the country, but I'm a city girl on the inside for many more reasons. My mind blazes when I'm in a city that lights up around me, and my soul stirs with the shadows that rush across mountains in spring. My heart falls on the line, flip-flopping in the moment. Perhaps this is why my heart flip-flops on a lot of things, but that's another story for another time.

Going on, I never really talked to my dad after we moved so abruptly without him, though my parents were not officially divorced until I was in sixth grade. It's been odd to bear a name knowing that the culture it came from is one that I had exposure to only for a small fraction of my life. For a long time, I felt embarrassed even saying it. In the past year or so, I've met a lot of people that have helped me to embrace it, whether they realized it or not.

I'm not sure where I was going with this anymore. I've been distracted by the possibility of a new old civilization...that'll make sense to someone out there. =)