Dragonflies Swarming Around A Moreton Bay Fig Tree. Archival ink on 12"x9" Paris Bleedproof paper.
Read The Following Only If You Must...
I am writing this story in the event that when someone prepares my body for burial someday and wonders what caused the 1-inch scar on my left knee, here's the true explanation, not the lie I told my family when I was six years old.The place where I spent the first ten years of my life was paradise. No I am not exaggerating. I look back now and I think it was paradise, not because there were rolling hills and clear brooks and streams. In fact it was a place where houses and structures where working class families lived, were jumbled in this piece of land facing the elementary school that my sisters, brothers and I attended. This enclave was surrounded by mansions and big homes and across the street towards the river, there was a slum area.
Anyway, to me it was paradise because the house my family and I called home was a refuge filled with books and presided by a most wonderful and loving father and mother I called my own. Maybe I am just a sentimental fool, but it is not a tale when I claim we were poor. We did not have money. My father was a hardworking photographer and our home where we had his studio was called Movie Snap. My mother was the most wonderful woman I have ever known. She was so interesting, so captivating and charming and beloved not just by us but by the neighbors for she was a kind, generous and intelligent woman. I felt rich! The only thing I remember wanting were plastic toys during Christmas but they could not match the toys we made by ourselves, the dresses my mother sewed for our dolls and of course, the books which we used as a sort of Lincoln logs.
So I grew up at Movie Snap. In front of Movie Snap was an open field where children romped. In the summer, the field had overgrown grasses that bore flowers and swarms of insects and bugs would hover over the field to the delight of the children. During the monsoon season, the field was covered in water and the ditch or the canal down the street had such strong current that we looked forward to making paper boats and had paper boat races. We also built miniature rafts and vintas made of the banana saps and let them float on the flooded field. All of these activities exposed us to dangers and diseases, yet somehow we grew up healthy and strong. The avenue called Libertad Street was lined with giant acacia trees.
Left: Pihak Suba, Right: The Acacia-lined Libertad Street
Left: Our mean abusive neighbor; Right: The elementary school and to it's right is our neighborhood.
Some Moleskine notebooks doodles of the place where I grew up along Libertad Street. The photo below is one of the giant acacia trees as seen today, courtesy of my childhood friend and neighbor, Ray Alan who is now a judge. Everything is so crowded and the sidewalks are gone.
I thought for sure I'd grow up and be an entomologist for I spent my childhood collecting and gathering insects and bugs - spiders, crickets, beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, ants, ladybugs and my favorite, the dragonflies! I collected these insects and housed them in matchboxes, screened boxes, jars and soda bottles.
Just before my sixth birthday, the field was swarming with dragonflies. Thousands of them. I would catch them and watch them eat a blade of grass. There were at least three kinds of dragonflies, the fat darters and chasers and the thin needle-like damselflies. That summer we were overcome with damselflies, beautiful blue damselflies! They were everywhere!!! I did not catch them with a net. I caught them individually, gingerly and masterfully.
I was alone in the field in the middle of the day. I am sure I smelled like a kid bathed in sweat and sun. I have already caught several damselflies and trapped them inside an empty Coca Cola bottle, but I wanted more. As I knelt with my right knee and quietly approached a damselfly with my right hand. I stabilized myself by flexing my left knee and as I balanced my weight on both knees, I felt an itch on my left knee. I caught the damselfly and got up. My left knee was sore and bothersome but I continued to capture more dragonflies. Finally I felt a sharp pain on my knee and when I touched it, my left hand was covered in blood. My knee was split open and I could see white ligaments protruding. My heart stopped.
What to do then. I could not hide the injury. I don't know why I was afraid to tell my parents or my family that I was injured. Perhaps I was afraid of being scolded for roaming around in the middle of the day when I was expected to stay inside the house or worried about the expenses for treatment. I hobbled to the front door and my sisters Leah and Rebecca saw me. They screamed at the sight of my bloody knee. Soon afterwards, all my sisters and brothers were frantically trying to figure out what to do. Our parents were away, Father was working and Mother was at the market. They called our neighbors and a throng of elderly women and curious children converged in our home. Tia Tiba, who was my godmother's mother and Tia Isid, who was Raynard's grandmother both came. I remember Tia Tiba giving instructions. She chewed a leaf and spit out the chewed up leaf and packed them on my wound. Then there was minced garlic... I kid you not! Ooooh! I also remember toothpaste and later Mother was incensed when she found out about all these things were packed on my wound by the elders. The elder women wrapped my knee and one of my sisters telephoned my father to come home. He came and saw that I needed stitches. I refused but he just scooped me and drove me to the hospital on his Italian scooter. It was a Lambretta.At the hospital Dr. Villanueva, asked me how I sustained my laceration. My father was standing next to me and I was afraid to say that I got into trouble for a damselfly. I told Dr. Villanueva that I was looking for my money which I dropped on the grass. Later in life, while I was a student in nursing college, Dr. Villanueva was still affiliated with the hospital and I helped her perform an emergency amputation in the ER!
The suturing hurt like hell. I was afraid to cry and so I quietly bore the pain but the wound was so deep that while they were irrigating it, every drop of water hurt me like a knife. My father was very proud of me for being cooperative and being brave. I actually wanted to cry.
When we got home, everyone was very kind to me. My mother was home from the market and she told me to sit down in the dining room and elevate my leg. She gave me food and snacks. I felt so guilty for lying about the cause of my injury. I never had the chance to tell her the truth. My scar used to look like an ugly eye on my knee. It is now flat and smooth and white, like a little white lie!
