Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-01-02

Division Street

I had a recollection from the psychedelics session just over 2 weeks ago. I dreamed I was a child and I was standing on my hometown's Division Street.
I started walking from behind the cathedral where my grandfather went to church. Although its property was also home to a very affluent private school, it neighbored homeless shelters, a section of the town's red light district, housing projects-- you get the picture, American urban blight. I walked towards the downtown, passing my beloved bakery and second-hand clothing store.

The street also appeared to me the way it looked when I visited last summer. It had some businesses that attempted to gentrify the street but most likely failed thanks to the pandemic. Some of the buildings had more modernized features, but their spaces were empty with newer window labels such as 'Like us on social media @...' The street looked more tired, sad, and narrow than I remembered it back in the 1970s. At least back then, it accepted what it was and didn't try to be or bring in something else.

After I passed the bakery, I got angry. It all hit me at once. Division Street: the street that divided the city. As I walked down that street, it was like all the lines and boundaries I saw in my own childhood came to me at once...

...the Latino world from where my mother was banished (or she left), and the blighted Black neighborhood where she and her family grew up.
...the conditional White world of my step-father's and how I had to push out what I knew and experienced about the Black and Brown worlds when I was in them. How I had to behave differently in those worlds (and had to do the same when in those other worlds).
...being in places where more affluent people were (I had some classmates who were), and having to fit in.
...trying not to show or express too much about what I picked up from the affluent places when I returned to my very racially mixed working class neighborhood.
...the public places where I had to make a lot of things about my life invisible for various purposes.
..the Catholic world (family, friends) versus the affluent Protestant world (step-father's, school, businesses, other friends) that I'd often jump in and out of, and often had to mute parts of myself there.
...the west side of town that was different than the east side of town, and both were different than the south side, and I lived in those areas at different times of my life.

Division Street? It wasn't simply the fucking dividing road in my town, it was my goddamned life! It was do this in this space, don't do that in that space, over and over again! Who the fuck has to internalize so many invisible laws, rules, and norms for so many places? The river valley hometown wasn't large, and unlike NYC or even the European Union! I realized I became aware of the rules when I was 8 years old and knew them cold as a teen. I didn't remember hating it then, but now I do! I screamed three times on the sidewalk. It didn't matter one rip if anyone heard me, I screamed at these many divisions I had to live with, these divisions that etched themselves in my head and distort what I see, or is it a distortion? Maybe it feels like a distortion because so few are aware!

Well, well, I guess leaving my hometown for different places wasn't that far of a stretch for me considering that I already internalized various types of divisions and rules of navigation. I lived in different parts of my first state, then country, and then within my current region. I used to pride myself on my versatility and almost boasted about the new places where I came as a stranger and left as a friend, or appreciated places I got to know well. However, as I stood in that vision, I felt differently. I was angry and yet very sad.

I couldn't take any more damned divisions and more invisible rules in worlds where I didn't belong. I couldn't stand being a contortionist. I felt like I was mutilating my self to fit in some place or hoping the denizens of a place would accept me. I hated making myself mute or changing how I spoke depending on where I was just to get on with others and not stick out like a sore thumb. As I walked further, I felt bits of myself cut or severed, and then more. I never even thought about making it stop; was it possible? Then, another sad thought came to me: this isn't home, this isn't home at all. Home is not where someone is supposed to constantly transform themselves for membership. Isn't home a place where someone belongs, is protected, and nourished? Did any of these divisions indicate I was home?

Once I reached downtown, I barely recognized myself when I saw my reflection in a window. I saw my enduring features like my eyes, hair color, parts of my face and hands, but I didn't look or feel the same at all from when I started. I then was left with a dull feeling that I wasn't home at all even though it was supposed to be my hometown.

downwind | upstream