Calle 8

When I drove us to school this morning, I had something similar to a deja vu, and I thought, Maybe if I write about this, I’ll draw some meaning from it.

It’s not that every moment or every letter has to have an inch of meaning, but you’ll come to learn that I am intense like that.

When the light turns green, I inch forward and wait for the lonely school bus to pass before making our left turn onto the even lonelier street. It’s interesting to notice the quiet and clearness of these sidewalks that gradually become more populated with all kinds of people.

The giant rooster statues salute us with their signs in cursive letters and Cuban-colored outfits. No tourist waiting in line to snap a photograph or put their arms around them. At 7 AM, these roosters are on a break, recharging before the next wave of admirers. As I rehearsed these words out loud, I tell you that one of these days, we will be the ones taking a selfie, and we won’t have to wait in line; we’ll pull over and do it.

Then, the realization came to me like a sneeze, loud and [mostly] out of nowhere. It was August 2019, and I had suddenly stopped on the side of the road on my way home from school, thinking: Next year, I won’t be here. I won’t see these dogs, avoid the trash, or wave at the bowabs—This is my last year in Egypt.

That awareness made it possible to notice details that were meaningless to me before; I even wrote a few lines about them. This morning, as I drove us down Calle 8, I imagined doing that same long farewell ritual with you, noticing the people waiting at the bus stop and the older man with a blue hat who always sweeps the front of his smoke shop with a cigar barely holding onto his bottom lip. I pictured strolling the Walk of Fame and telling you about the names I recognize on the floor, some from the novelas I used to watch with my grandma.

Before long, we’ll begin talking about moving on (your Dad and I; you can babble your opinions in). We’ll have a destination, jobs to look forward to, and a long list of things to do before a big move. There will be excitement hidden under a big blanket of sadness and guilt. We want what we want for you, but I wish it didn’t come with the distance-from-family tag.

When you’re older, and people ask where you’re from, you’ll probably say I was born in Miami followed by a quick explanation of your origin. And I hope these memories I’m trying to save for you help you feel a connection to a place you won’t remember like I will.