river oaks

More than an address, which I hardly remember lets see...
28?? crest????
Rochester Hills Michigan
483??

I remember this home as River oaks, it was a condo neighborhood, where, I still do not understand why, all mexican families who moved to the US, due to the fact that they worked for Chrysler (head quarters about 5 miles away from river oaks) or GM, moved in to river oaks. It still makes no sense to me, what I remember the most is that no one really got along, there was a lot of envy and competiton. People simply behaved differently and I did not like it.
At home, that is with my mom, dad and sister, it was not bad. The magic that existed in Las Alamedas was no longer there, as if I had suddenly woken up to reality at the age of nine. And, I do believe I lost that sense of innocence and fantasy about the world because I began to feel disillusion, I began to understand what missing really meant and I began to feel and see that people do not always fit in.
My sister and I of course, were closer to each other than ever, I think here is were I understood the meaning of sisterly love, not that at that time i comprehended it as such, but looking back, I cherished her presense more than anything. We spent a lot of time together, I remember first moving in my dad was oh so proud because for the first time we had a microwave and we loved making popcorn and watching the bag inflate. For the first time, we had a room that had matching furniture, all in pink and like princesses we lived in this house. It was still small, bigger than the house in mexico. Everything was new though, the carpet was not the cheap kind, but fluffy and beige, it smelled of fresh paint and we had a huge window with slilding doors that took you to a balcony, that was a big deal. The relationship between my parents improved a whole lot, there was much much less bickering and yelling and my dad is present in my memories like never before. I never acknolwedged him for this, but he really took care of us, he made sure we felt welcome and safe and he was so proud to be able to offer us this house. I remember the first thing he bought my sister and I when we moved there was a boom box, a nice one too, I think we still have it and so, for fear of not knowing how the world worked in rocherster hills michigan, we would spend hhours listening to Shakira and coloring Pocahontas coloring books in our parents room. My dad, this makes me laugh so much, he decided that Karla and I were only aloud to watch tv in english so that we would pick up the language, so we did, until he realized that we were losing our spanish, because we spent the entire day speaking english and listening to english, so on one of his trips down to Mexico, he bought us spelling and grammar books for the spanish language and told us that we were only aloud to watch tv in spanish. Its almost as if we lived in our own little world in that house, it was our safe space were we could be the family we were in mexico. In school, people would talk about movies or tv shows and i had no idea what they were referring to, because i only watched tv in spanish. I like it thouggh, I liked that feeling of being safe. My mom became my hero at this time, she was so alone, and I did not see this at first but she never asked for that big change in her life and still today, I don't think she has managed to rid herself of that loneliness or feeling of loneliness. She did it all though, she went out and on her own learned about this little town, and where to go to find things, she tried so hard to embrace the culture like my sister and I had, and so she...made hot dogs for us and instead of cooking everything fresh, she used frozen foods and meat, and she began to understand that life was made easier being here.
I guess this house for us, was a way to embrace an easier life, to understand that things could be different and little by little we did. Still, we were always safe in our little condo, watching tv in spanish and having a sense of wonder at all that we had never had before. It was as if we realized that life did not have to be that hard. Whenever we talk about this phase in our lives, my dad always said, that right there was the moment when we stopped having debts and ever since then, we have never been in debt with anybody.
So it was a great house, but it was not fulfillment, we were all still missing something and with people around us always bickering and gossiping, it was not the place to be.
It did create a stronger bond btwn the four of us though, that I am oh so thankful for, most definitely. We learned to roller blade together, we went to school together (four of us learning from each other about the english language) and we went for walks together, it was like it was the four of us or nothing bc that was all we had, each other.
Now that I think about it, there was also a hill by this house, but instead of facing it, we were on top of it...wow...weird.
I don't know what would happen if I ever went back, I don't know if it would trigger nostalgia, I think it would trigger memories of the smells, it always smelled like dove soap. It was another one of our discoveries I think, nice pink dove soap and it always smelled like new. It was always warm during winter or cool during summer, that we liked and it was just neat and organized a perfect little box where the lights never went out, water never went cold or ran out, all those things, it was just an easier worry free life it seemed.
I saw snow for the first time, well not the first time, but legit snow that lasted teh entire winter season, I guess this house provided for a lot of firsts and for that I do remember it with happy tears.
top of hill
lots of first instances
worry free life- which made us all smile
sudden waking up- less of a child
bond btwn family
smells
surroundings- not so pleasant.