In the summer of 1971,
McDonald's had just opened its doors in Guam, I got my first kiss, and my parents sat four of us children down to announce their big plan to move from our home in Guam to California. My immediate reaction was shock, the move would be thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean and California was like another world to me.
💃Feelings of unknown I felt in my stomach, swirling all around the way gumballs in those giant machines do when a quarter is placed in its slot. The move would mean leaving behind my friends, my newfound status in teenaged life, and the place in which I was born and had spent my entire life up to that point. Who would answer the door when my two best friends come knocking at six o'clock in the morning to pick mansanan potaki (small stinky apples) and go on bike rides? Who would follow the Techa (Novena Prayer leader) from house to house, praying in front of elaborate nativity scenes for nine days and then, who would eat all the treats on the last day?
👪 The closeness of our community that made it so special was also what made it so difficult to leave. Days after the announcement in the living room, my thoughts drifted between excitement and sadness. I could not bear to leave, having just reached such and exciting age. i was fourteen years old and having finally overcame the ugly-duckling stage-scrawny and overly shy--received my first kiss from the cutest boy in the neighborhood. My dark curly hair finally relaxed into soft waves and I was at that dizzying height of instropection and adolescence mourning every seeming catastrophe between enjoying hours on the telephone, cheerleading, sports and of course, that first kiss.
It was peculiar set up at summer camp. Raymond and three of his friends approached two of my friends and me. One of the boys cleared his throat, apparently metamorphosing from boy to man, and croaked. "Lou, Ray wants to talk to you." "Okay," I answered. Ray and I sat under a huge Kamachili tree surrounded by our friends and right then and there he kissed me. It was fantastic, I was in heaven for a second or two.
Fleeting from that euphoria, with nostalgic memories of days past flipping like the pages of photo album, I achieved so
me tacit rank in the teenybopper society, became popular for the brief span I had on island. For a while, it seemed that kiss would serve to relieve the grief of leaving.
me tacit rank in the teenybopper society, became popular for the brief span I had on island. For a while, it seemed that kiss would serve to relieve the grief of leaving.
Unfortunately, the ties I had to my home extended far beyond girlhood adventures. I had never lived anywhere else, our home was small and wooden and lit mainly by sunlight that filtered through the expanse of a multitude of large, screen windows. As an architect, my father built the house conducive to the elements_Guam's tropical breezes blew sweet scents of fruit tress and flowering plants surrounding our yard into the house_and every year since he built it in 1952, he would paint the house the same colour, foam green with sea green trim.
My siblings and I to include the 4 elders, were all born at home by a midwife named NanKala, for the very reason that the eldest, born at Naval hospital right after the war. That which my Mother experienced a horrible birthing of her firstborn. She couldn't hold my brother Robert immediately after entry in to the world as the Anglo doctors thought babies needed to be washed scrubbed off as well as the moms and kept away for a day. It took two decades later when Kennedy's Job Corp-turned hippies helped change birthing protocols 2 decades late.
Deeper ties not ever wanting to leave was that we all attended the same school from Kindergarten to middle school. Everyday, we walked to San Vicente Catholic School, which was quite far but never felt its distance with the constant chatter and laughter amongst us.
After my parent’s announcement, my brothers and sister’ shrill screams of excitement could be heard from afar. "Will we have our own room", we all wondered aloud and "Snow! Freeways! skyscrapers!" We shouted the things we thought we might see, Mom and Dad laughing at our childish delight.
Orchestrating the actual relocation was more of a chore. there were clothes to be sorted, dishes to be packed, and quite simply the lives of six people to be uprooted and moved overseas. We packed our set of World book encyclopaedias that Mom and Dad purchased, by saving every penny they could spare, from the door-to-door salesman who came every Saturday morning the year before.
My parents instructed us to throw everything we did not need into the fire they had blazing in the yard, after Dad had refurbished the house as nice as new to a renter already excited to replace us as guardians of 'Gima Fleming', eyo I bula fruta yan flores siha.' Our lawyer that handled the rental agreement fell in love with the 19 year old solid wooden home.
As the fire blazed, I rested on a smooth large rock near the fire; when I saw my only pillow, fall into the fire, bursting into tears, I leaped off the rock and quickly grabbed the pillow from the inferno. I hugged it and buried my face in it, crying myself to sleep, the reality of what lay ahead finally realised.
The first significant event in my life gave me opportunities to see many different cultures, people, and places. I appreciated my differences as well as the differences in people and their ways. I also gained a clearer perspective of my parents' courage and stamina. They were struggling financially, didn't speak or write English well, yet their vision for a brighter future for the younger four despite that my folks were already in their 50's, made a giant change in their own lives for us.
No barriers for these two folks, Ursula and Tommy; within 3 years, and in my junior year, we moved into our own new home they purchased from hard work and sacrifices they both made for the love of family and home in Monterey, CA.
