january 2 2009

Every place I ever lived
(A writing exercise)
By Adriana Silva


Well. I was born in 1981. In Chino California, it use to be a small farming and dairy community. Over the years it has grown to a little orange county.
I know I lived a lot of places or visited a lot of places. I think at one time I was actually homeless with my mother. I don’t know if it really counts. Since my mother could always take us to my grandparents house. However the one place I felt the closet to home is were ever my grandmother is.
After I was born I lived with my mother and father in some small apartment in either Chino or Pomona. I lived with them in a nuclear family until I was one or two. The story changes from time to time. Then depending who you ask, I was either taken away or saved for a better life. I sometimes feel that the whole situation could have ended differently. I could never understand why my mother was a good at saving and paying things off, but not good at following through on things that could help her get her children back.
I lived with my grandparents in Chino on a dairy road behind the Men’s prison. Now that I live out of the state of California people will ask in passing were I am from. I’ll respond with California. People will then ask what part. Saying Southern California won’t do. They want specifics. I say Chino. Blank stares. But wait. Chino’s Men’s Prison comes to their mind. Or they ask is it by Disneyland, San Diego, or Los Angeles. And that is how the conversation starts or ends.
Living with my grandparents are my most happiest and saddest memories. There was a lot of love because there was a lot of heartache.
When I was ten I went to live with my mother. I really didn’t want to leave my grandparents. I was just so obsessed with wanting to know what it felt like to live with my mother. I wanted her to love me the way I love her. She moved to Hesperia. First lets briefly go through my mothers living history, because although I lived with my grandparents for a good part of my life, I visited my mother and all the places she lived in. Rancho Cucamonga, Pomona, Ontario, Santa Anna Downy and Rose Mead, with or with out boyfriends. A good chunk of my life I was either an outsider in my mothers home or my grandparents.
My mother moved to Hesperia to get away from my grandparents I’m guessing. We moved into my mothers cousins house. We stayed in a bedroom with all our stuff. Our clothes were always on the floor. I remember hating it but I never cleaned up. I think shortly moving there my brother moved with my uncle in my grandparent’s house. I took a babysitting job. I was 10. The mother a newly separated women thought I was 16. I took care of her two younger children for one hundred dollars a week. She had a nineteen-year-old son. Who was always one step from sexually crossing the line with me. After a short stay with our cousin and his family my mother got a two-bedroom apartment in the next down. I don’t have many memories of that place. Since we didn’t stay there long. I do remember we did not have refrigerator. Instead, we had a Styrofoam ice-chest that always smelled stale. Our milk was always going bad. I remember always being alone with my sister. . I remember being hungry. I used a knife once to open a can of yummy gunk. I made a friend on the school bus and I think our hunger lead us to stay the night at her house. I didn’t ask our mom, because she hadn’t been home for a couple of days. Some how my mom and uncle knocked on my friend’s door. I don’t know how they knew were to look, nonetheless they found us. After that we moved to a duplex in Ontario. A lot of misshappens went on. I think I had my first sloppy kiss at that house. We didn’t stay there long either.
At twelve I got into some adolescent argument with my grandfather. I felt at the mature age of twelve that I needed to leave. What did I really know? I look back on it know and I feel like such a selfish brat. I moved with my mother, sister, and my mother’s pervert boyfriend Johnny. They lived in a back house with one bedroom, one bathroom, and no refrigerator. Because of my grades I was moved from the 7th grade to the 9th grade. Life was fast and miserable for a few months. I became my mothers care giver, my sisters mother, and Johnny’s infatuation. I was beat and humiliated. Like a scene out of Mommy Dearest. Except her house was much nicer. That year a monster came out of me for the first of the two times it came out. I hit my mother after being punched in the face. It makes me sad that that ever happened. I would die if I drove my daughter to such lengths.
Of course I went back to my grandparents house. Until 11th grade I moved with my aunt to finish high school. My grandparents were bought out. So they moved to the mountains.
Two weeks after graduation I moved into a room for three hundred dollars a month, then became pregnant. I moved in with my boyfriend and his father thinking it was the right thing to do. We lost the baby. I was secretly sad about that for along time. I was ready to move on. Find a small apartment by myself. Work and go to school. I was ready to break up with him. Then I became pregnant with my son. I felt that I had to stay. I was happy about my baby but again secretly sad that I had to stay in the relationship. We moved to an apartment in Rialto. I had my son there. I was alone in that apartment. That was fine, because I had my son. One day I came home and half of our stuff was packed and gone. My boyfriend had decided it was time to move. So I did. We moved to his mother’s house. I felt like such an outsider. If I ever doubted how American I was, living with his family proved that I was just as American as the white kids I went to school.
I had my daughter sixteen months later. We moved into an apartment in Chino on Riverside Drive. We only lasted as a couple there 2 months. Shortly after my daughters first birthday we split up and I realized didn’t love him. I
I lived in that apartment alone with my two babies for four years. Working and going to school. I tried hard to be a good mom and keep a clean house. Instead it was picked up and there were bugs from all the different neighbors that moved in and out. I would have my apartment fumigated and the bugs just went to the bottom floor. Then when the bottom apartment had their apartment fumigated the roach bastards came back up to my place. Back and forth those nasty little things went. Now I am married to a man I actually love. I live now in Texas. And the size, style and comfort tone of our house and life is a writing exercise for another time.
These are the entire place’s I’ve lived. Mostly.